Amazon terminated an internal leaderboard designed to track employee usage of generative AI tools.
Staff inflated usage scores by assigning AI agents to perform unnecessary tasks, a practice called tokenmaxxing. Pressure to meet corporate AI adoption targets motivated the behavior, despite company assurances that metrics would not affect performance reviews.
The manipulation of metrics resulted in higher computing costs for the company.
Senior executive Dave Treadwell ordered staff to stop using AI for the sake of using AI. Treadwell acknowledged the leaderboard produced unintended consequences despite its original positive intentions.