Amazon Shuts AI Usage Leaderboard After Employees Gamed Token-Spending Rankings

3 articles · Updated · 404 Media · Jun 1

Amazon scrapped an internal leaderboard that ranked employees by AI-tool use, ending a program that had awarded thousands of PhoneTool badges across the company.
Employees said the system was easy to game with automated prompts, and some did so after managers told them they were not using AI enough.
That incentive structure pushed wasteful token consumption rather than productive work, according to workers who said the dashboard rewarded higher usage, not efficiency.
Amazon said the beta tool had achieved its goal of driving AI awareness, was never a formal approved system, and has now been deprecated.
The episode highlights a broader tech-industry push to maximize AI usage metrics even as companies track token costs and risk paying for unproductive activity.

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