CIOs and CTOs spent years lauding AI. Now, with costs rising, they’re putting limits on how it’s used

Chief Information Officer Stephen Franchetti has enthusiastically embraced a wide array of artificial intelligence tools to bolster workflow automation for the tech firm’s 4,100 employees.

At tech firm Samsara, Franchetti has authorized Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and the AI coding agent Cursor, while also developing an internal system that monitors all AI expenses that can be tracked on a daily basis. More recently, Samsara has capped usage for some non-technical employees, while some groups like research and development—which need AI for more intensive coding and data analysis—have more room to experiment.

“It took us a while to settle on the right caps, to make sure everyone was well served,” says Franchetti. “But it puts people in the position where they’re kind of in control and they can make choices as to which models they use.”

With global AI spending projected to total $2.5 trillion this year, a 44% increase from prior-year levels, CIOs and other technology leaders within the C-suite are finding themselves in a delicate moment on their AI journey. After years of promoting AI adoption with training courses and hackathons, and making AI coding tools, agents, and chat assistants widely accessible for their employees, some are tightening up how frequently these tools can be used and retraining staff to bett...