Rippling Built AI Spend Tool After Burning Millions

HR software firm Rippling launched AI Spend Console after discovering it was on track to spend 40% of its R&D headcount budget on AI tokens, with one engineer burning $50,000 a month. Spending grew 80% month-over-month before executives intervened. The tool tracks individual employee AI spending against actual productivity, routes prompts to cost-effective models, and helped Rippling cut token costs to 15% of headcount budget. July usage matched peak levels but at 37% of the previous cost.