As so many large firms went all-in on AI over the past few years, policies to maximize employee AI adoption ranged from incentives to threats. Now, the Financial Times reports many companies are instead emphasizing quality over quantity, faced with both employee backlash and the rising costs of AI tokens. Calling AI leaderboards and policies tying performance reviews to AI usage "a really stupid way to do anything," a legal AI firm's CTO says staff should be rewarded "for being effective and efficient ... not for necessarily using AI.”