Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing
12 Grams of Carbon ● Covered by 2 sources
An industry analyst argues that "tokenmaxxing"—companies intentionally pushing high token usage to drive AI adoption—was a temporary but deliberate strategy that has given way to a new phase where higher token spending produces better results, particularly in security research and agent-based loops. Anthropic's unreleased Mythos model received 100M-token budgets per security attempt, costing $12,500 per attempt, with models showing no signs of diminishing returns. As companies recognize that iterative agent loops now offer genuine value per token spent, a new era of token spending may emerge, particularly for open-source models that cost five times less but can be run proportionally more times to achieve similar results.
Why it matters
The concept of 'tokenmaxxing' was once seen as a reckless approach to spending token resources in businesses, but may have evolved into a more nuanced strategy.
Related stories
After blowing its entire 2026 AI budget in months, Uber CTO says ‘We’re coming to the end of the so-called 'tokenmaxxing' era’
Fortune ·
25