Tech companies spent the past two years changing how they expect employees to use AI. In less than two years, the advice given to software engineers and other professionals has changed dramatically. After ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, many workers hid their AI use, worried it could be seen as cheating. By 2025, companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Shopify and Accenture were encouraging—or even requiring—employees to use AI tools. Now, as the cost of AI usage rises and businesses demand measurable returns, many employers are moving away from rewarding AI usage itself and are instead focusing on productivity and business outcomes, according to a Financial Times report.
AI at work: Companies shift focus from AI usage to productivity
Soon after generative AI became mainstream, companies rushed to integrate it into daily work. As stated in the FT report, Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke made “reflexive AI usage” a baseline expectation for employees and linked it to performance reviews. In July 2025, Microsoft also made AI use mandatory for developers and included it in employee appraisals. Accenture too tied promotions for senior staff to the use of its AI tools, while law firm Shoosmiths offered a £1 million bonus if employees collectively logged one million prompts on Microsoft Copilot.E-commerce giant Amazon also pushed developers to use AI. According to the Financial Times, the company tracked AI tool usage and published internal leaderboards showing how much employees used the technology.However, the approach changed after reports emerged that some workers were using AI for non-essential tasks simply to improve their rankings. In May this year, Amazon warned its employees to stop using AI. “Please don’t use AI just for the sake of using AI,” Amazon Senior Vice President Dave Treadwell told employees. The company later removed the leaderboards.
Growing AI costs force companies to rethink
The shift comes as AI companies increasingly charge customers based on token usage rather than fixed subscriptions, making excessive AI use more expensive. As stated in the FT report, Jacob Lauritzen, chief technology officer at legal AI startup Legora, criticised measuring employees by AI usage.“Reward [staff] for being effective and efficient and having more output, not for necessarily using AI.” Some engineers have also raised concerns about linking AI use to performance reviews.One systems engineer told the publication that companies were encouraging workers to adapt problems to AI rather than choosing the best tool for the job. He said the approach had also led to AI-generated mistakes that took time to fix. Another senior software engineer said making AI use an official performance measure removed employees’ freedom to decide how they wanted to work.
Companies now want purposeful AI use
Experts say businesses are entering a new phase of AI adoption. Ravin Jesuthasan, senior partner at Mercer, said companies are now looking for measurable returns instead of simply encouraging AI experimentation.Tanuj Kapilashrami, chief operating officer at Standard Chartered, said the days of promoting technology “for the sake of tech” are ending for most businesses, per the FT report.Some companies are also changing how they reward AI use. KPMG has introduced an “AI Spark” award for innovative uses of AI rather than setting usage targets. AllianceBernstein encourages employees to question AI-generated answers instead of accepting them blindly. IBM focuses on employee training and monitors outcomes rather than rewarding AI usage directly.
