Apple slashes internal AI budgets, with deeper cuts still planned

According to Bloomberg, Apple cut some engineers' daily token budget from $300 to $200 last month, with plans to potentially lower it to $100 a day and as low as $25 for some non-technical teams, and employees needing more can request exceptions from management. Employees have access to Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Google's Gemini, and some teams will be shifted to cheaper models or AI that runs locally on devices. The cuts fit the direction of new CEO John Ternus, who has pushed to make the company leaner, even as Apple's R&D spending jumped 32 percent in fiscal year 2026, driven by higher infrastructure and AI costs.