Companies Adopt AI 'Caveman' Tool, Cutting Output Tokens by Up to 75%
Updated
Updated · 404 Media · Jun 30
Companies Adopt AI 'Caveman' Tool, Cutting Output Tokens by Up to 75%
2 articles · Updated · 404 Media · Jun 30
Summary
Caveman, a plugin that strips pleasantries and verbose phrasing from LLM replies, is being used inside companies to curb fast-rising and unpredictable AI token bills.
65% to 75% fewer output tokens is the tool’s claimed savings range; in 404 Media’s test with Claude Code, it reported about 5,800 tokens saved, or 65%.
Legrand told employees to use the tool after billing changes and new quotas, alongside shifting tasks to cheaper models and avoiding high-reasoning settings unless needed.
OpenAI, Nvidia and GitHub developers are among reported users, and GitHub records show an OpenAI engineering director contributed Codex support to the project.
The push reflects a wider cost squeeze: GitHub moved to per-token pricing in April, while Uber and Walmart capped AI usage after budgets were burned through faster than expected.