Sources: some Amazon employees are using in-house OpenClaw-like tool MeshClaw for unnecessary tasks to inflate AI token use after Amazon set weekly AI targets
In-house MeshClaw tool enables employees to delegate jobs to AI agents and climb company's AI leaderboard
Financial Times
Related Coverage
- AI spending likely higher than suggested Semafor · Tom Chivers
- Amazon employees admit to using AI unnecessarily to pump up internal usage scores — workers complain of intense pressure to use AI tools Tom's Hardware · Luke James
- Amazon employees are “tokenmaxxing” due to pressure to use AI tools Ars Technica · Rafe Rosner-Uddin
- “Tokenmaxxing” spreads at Amazon as employees game internal AI leaderboards The Decoder · Maximilian Schreiner
- Amazon Workers Say Pressure Leads to Needless AI Use PYMNTS
- Chart of the Day: The Rise and Fall of OpenClaw Paul Kedrosky
- Enterprises Look Beyond Token Counts to Measure AI PYMNTS
Discussion
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@uberpaul
@uberpaul
on bluesky
You know a technology is useful when big corps need to put KPIs on their staff to use it. [embedded post]
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@edzitron.com
Ed Zitron
on bluesky
Rascal's Wager [embedded post]
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@mexicanrestaurant
@mexicanrestaurant
on bluesky
Seems wise and sustainable! [embedded post]
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@hollycummins.com
Holly Cummins
on bluesky
Remember, kids, think carefully about your targets. If your leading indicator is “burn as much money as possible” your lagging indicator may not be what you think it is. [embedded post]
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@parismarx.com
Paris Marx
on bluesky
“There is just so much pressure to use these tools,” one Amazon employee told the FT. “Some people are just using MeshClaw to maximise their token usage.”
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@botmatrix.myatproto.social
Eric Shamow
on bluesky
you get what you incentivize — those are the employees you want if you know what to do with them [embedded post]
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@thestalwart
Joe Weisenthal
on x
The FT says that Amazon employees are doing random unnecessary task automations to consume tokens and to show their bosses that they're using AI more https://www.ft.com/...
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@dorotheabaur
Dorothea Baur
on x
Amazon said it wouldn't use AI token statistics in performance evaluations. But employees are distrustful. “'Managers are looking at it... When they track usage it creates perverse incentives and some people are very competitive about it'” https://www.ft.com/...
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r/technology
r
on reddit
Amazon staff use AI tool for unnecessary tasks to inflate usage scores
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@thdxr
Dax
on x
root issue is most employees aren't in properly motivating environments it's adversarial where the employer and employee are seeing how much they can get over on the other it's exactly why ai isn't going to magically make teams more productive
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@thestalwart
Joe Weisenthal
on x
The case for token maxing, I guess, is basically that if you get your employees just using AI in volume, then eventually they'll get some fluency/intuitions that allow them to find productivity gains?
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@ben_golub
Ben Golub
on x
Hello @amazon do you have analysis in statistics, operations, economics, etc.? Would you like to get reviews of them that rival those of human experts in stress-testing the technical details? We are here for you @RefineDotInk - we use SO MANY TOKENS.
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@mattzeitlin
Matthew Zeitlin
on x
Ultimate task for AI: come up with ways to consume tokens to show your boss that you're using AI more
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@ruoshuiresearch
Ruo Shui
on bluesky
token leaderboards must be great for free cash flow
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@sidhubaba
Siddhartha Mahanta
on x
can absolutely see something like this happening in newsrooms [image]
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@matvelloso
Mat Velloso
on x
What is fascinating to me is how would anyone expect any other outcome but this...
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@quinnypig
Corey Quinn
on x
Amazon set weekly AI usage targets for employees, and now they're using an internal Claude clone called MeshClaw to do pointless work to hit quota. Congratulations on inventing the billable hour from first principles.
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Ian Miell
Ian Miell
on linkedin
This article reads like a lost episode of Silicon Valley. — Amazon games its workforce to perversely use AI to excess to justify its own investments. …
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@jessefelder.com
Jesse Felder
on bluesky
‘Amazon employees are using an internal AI tool to automate non-essential tasks in a bid to show managers they are using the technology more frequently.’ www.ft.com/content/8ee0...
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@oowm.org
Wes Mills
on bluesky
I heard someone use the word “tokenmaxxing” at Jewel Box this weekend and almost walked into Puget Sound while wearing bricks for shoes. — arstechnica.com/ai/2026/05/a...
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@hagenblix
Hagen Blix
on bluesky
Someone is noticing that the “just burn through the tokens” strategy doesn't seem so rational
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@nohillside.ch
Patrick Seemann
on bluesky
It's always amazing how KPI fail to improve the performance they are expected to improve. — Amazon staff use AI tool for unnecessary tasks to inflate usage scores www.ft.com/content/8ee0d3... [image]