As the AI Revolution creates massive incentives for employees to build AI expertise through extensive use, CEOs are being yanked out of high-level AI strategy sessions by a simple but incredibly significant question: if everyone craves AI tokens, how do businesses decide who gets them?
It is the classic 21st-century example of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, and CEOs who try to convince themselves that they’re too important to have to get involved in such picayune matters as AI-token allocations are going to be making a terrible and perhaps career-limiting mistake.
If we look at the current state of the art, those existential decisions are currently being made or will soon be made by AI admins. And while I mean no disrespect to the great people out on the front edge of the AI-admin profession, it is crazy to think that responsibility should be based at that level.
Payroll administrators are vital professionals — but do they decide who gets raises and who doesn’t? Who gets a 20% bonus and who gets a 5% cut?
This looming challenge came to light for me when I saw a recent announcement from OpenAI about new usage analytics and updated spend controls for enterprises.
Since most of us residents of planet Earth have heard the reports about “An unnamed enterprise accidentally spent an astonishing $500 million in a single month on Anthropic’s Claude AI platform after failing to set usage limits or spending caps for its employees,” the new OpenAI solution seemed like a pretty good idea.
And from the perspectives of technology and spend-control, no doubt it is.
But, as the AI Revolution helps fully fuse the domains of business and IT, those limited perspectives are not enough, and must be put into the service of the #1 priority: business outcomes.
As you’ll see in this excerpt from the OpenAI announcement, the product is well-positioned, surfaces timely and essential data, and helps businesses make optimal decisions about how to allocate an asset that has enormous value but is in short supply: AI tokens:
Today, we’re introducing credit usage analytics and updated spend controls for ChatGPT Enterprise. These capabilities help companies track credit usage, understand adoption patterns, and make more informed decisions about how AI is deployed across their organizations. With clearer visibility and more flexible controls, organizations can proactively manage costs, give teams the access they need, and keep AI investments focused on the work that matters most.
New credit usage analytics in the Global Admin Console
The Global Admin Console brings ChatGPT and Codex credit usage into one view, so admins can see a more granular breakdown of credit consumption across users, products, and models — helping them understand where spend is coming from and how it maps to actual credit usage. This makes it easier to distinguish between increased usage driven by valuable work and usage patterns that may require closer review.
All makes perfect sense, right?
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So, my argument is not at all about the product — it looks great — but rather with the current reality that AI admins will be responsible for determining who gets more AI tokens, who gets fewer, and when that all happens.
A bit later in the OpenAI announcement, AI admins are clearly portrayed as the people who have to determine who gets — and who does not get — the desperately coveted AI tokens:
Now admins can also set a default limit for their ChatGPT Enterprise workspace, configure limits for specific groups, and create individual overrides for people who need more capacity. Employees can see their credit usage against their available budget, request additional credits when needed, and include context about what they’re working on so admins can make an informed decision. This allows individual power users to keep working without interruption or the need to increase limits for everyone else.
And if the AI Fever seems high right now within businesses, just imagine what it’ll be like in six months —and how insane it’ll be a year from now.
Those AI admins will be hounded 24/7 by department heads and middle managers and VPs and insatiable salespeople who’ll be screaming and sending all-caps messages along the lines of “I demand *unlimited* usage *immediately* and you *better* give me what I want or I’ll tell your boss or boss’s boss or the CEO to fire you *instantly* because if you don’t give me what I want then the whole company is headed for *complete ruin* and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT!!”
When a company starts to behave like that, the disaster has already begun.
Final Thought
CFOs will no doubt take on huge roles in developing and executing the forthcoming policies about AI-token allocations, but ownership for the strategic outline and establishment of crystal-clear priorities has to come from the CEO:
If product development and sales are both screaming for more AI tokens, who gets them?
What metrics can employees across the company use to make their case for more tokens?
What are the transparent rules/policies that AI admins can deploy with great confidence to ensure that the tokens are going to the top business priorities of the organization, rather than to the internal faction that screeches loudest and longest?
Nobody but the CEO can effectively address those questions and set up practices to ensure they’re being followed rigorously — and can be adapted as market and corporate requirements shift.
When that happens, this OpenAI solution for AI admins could very well become indispensable — but until then, it has the potential to expose a lot of corporate confusion.
