Bloomberg reported, in an account republished by Yahoo Finance on November 4, 2026, that Apple reduced the daily AI-usage allowance for some engineers from $300 to $200 during October. The report attributed the change to unnamed sources familiar with the matter; an Apple spokesperson declined to comment.
The $100 reduction is a 33.3% cut to the allowance ceiling, not a measure of actual employee usage.
Other team limits were planned or considered
Bloomberg also reported that Apple planned a $100 daily allowance for some engineering teams. Many non-engineering teams reportedly had $100 daily limits, and Apple had considered lowering the cap to $25 for some of them. Employees who needed more for their work could request an exception from senior management.
The account said Apple was encouraging workplace AI use while directing some teams toward cheaper models or models that run locally on devices. It named Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini as services available to employees.
What the allowance measures
The reported cap concerns model usage measured in tokens, the text and other data AI models process in response to prompts. Providers commonly charge according to token use, and more advanced models generally cost more. Bloomberg’s sources said few employees had used up the previous $300 daily allowance.
The employee limits sit alongside separate company expense figures in the same account. Apple’s research and development expenses rose 32% in fiscal 2026, a rise Bloomberg attributed to higher infrastructure and AI costs. Operating expenses increased 22% to $75.5 billion, or 16% of net sales.
