• Paramount Skydance is putting monthly limits on Claude token usage for tech employees.
• The change is meant to "ensure controlled spending and effective usage," a tech leader said.
• Other companies, including Disney and Microsoft, are encouraging responsible AI usage.

Paramount Skydance is putting limits on Claude spending for tech staffers as the company looks to cut down on wasteful AI usage.

David Ellison's company has capped how many Claude tokens users can use each month, three Paramount employees said. Tokens are units of AI usage and are generally how companies like Claude-maker Anthropic bill customers.

"As part of ongoing AI governance, monthly spend limits have been applied to Claude accounts to ensure controlled spending and effective usage across the organization," a senior AI leader said in an early-August message in Paramount's #claude-users Slack channel.

Paramount's move is part of a trend of companies putting limits on AI usage. Disney has told employees to avoid "tokenmaxxing," or maximizing AI usage without an eye toward productivity. Tech giant Microsoft also wants to crack down on AI token overuse, which CEO Satya Nadella said can be "addictive."

The senior Paramount AI leader said on Slack that "most users won't notice any change to their day-to-day experience" and added that tech leadership still "wanted to give everyone a heads-up."

A person familiar with the change said these monthly AI usage limits aren't team-specific and are instead "tailored by person and by need." They added that the limits are "more of an art than a science."

Users who exceed their monthly quota can request more tokens by filling out a form, four Paramount employees said.

Despite putting in Claude token limits, Paramount is "definitely still encouraging AI," the person familiar with the company's strategy said.

Token limits cause 'a fair amount of hubbub'

Some tech staffers were caught off guard by the new limits.

"There was a fair amount of hubbub around the change," one streaming employee said, though they added that it "won't really affect me" since they use only a fraction of their monthly token limit.

The senior AI leader's message thanked employees for "patience as we continue building out the right guardrails for responsible AI use at Paramount."

Paramount's cost-conscious move comes as its $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery is on hold after an antitrust lawsuit from 12 states.

Barring a settlement, the company will owe over $1 billion in fees to WBD shareholders while it waits for its March trial. Paramount's financial backers agreed to pay a so-called "ticking fee" of about $7 million per day that the WBD deal isn't closed, starting after September 30.

If Paramount buys WBD, it will have roughly $80 billion in debt, and if the deal doesn't close, it would have to pay a $7 billion termination fee.

• ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel has provoked another political controversy.
• Kimmel joked that Melania Trump "had a glow like an expectant widow."
• The first lady said on social media that Kimmel "shouldn't have the opportunity" to "spread hate."

Jimmy Kimmel is back in the middle of a political firestorm.

The ABC host drew the ire of Melania Trump after joking Thursday on his late-night show that the first lady "had a glow like an expectant widow." Kimmel told the joke days before a gunman entered the building hosting the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night.

"Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country," Melania Trump wrote on X on Monday morning. "His monologue about my family isn't comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America."

The first lady added that "people like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate."

"Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior at the expense of our community," Melania Trump's post continued.

President Donald Trump seconded his wife's anti-Kimmel sentiment by encouraging Disney to cut ties with the comedian.

"Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday afternoon.

ABC suspended Kimmel's show last fall for comments he made about Charlie Kirk's killer, which drew the condemnation of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. Kimmel was reinstated by ABC days later following an outcry from free-speech advocates.

Nexstar and Sinclair, which each own hundreds of local TV stations, initially refused to air "Jimmy Kimmel Live," though they eventually agreed to let their ABC affiliates show it.

Leaders at ABC and Disney, its parent company, now must decide whether to take any action against Kimmel and risk another boycott, or stand behind the comic.

It's the latest challenge for new Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro, who's already dealt with his company's OpenAI deal falling apart and the shelving of a controversy-plagued season of "The Bachelorette."

• Netflix just raised prices again, following in the footsteps of Disney+, HBO Max, and Peacock.
• Steady price increases from paid streamers may be helping fuel the growth of free services like YouTube.
• Netflix will still deliver viewers solid value on a cost-per-hour basis after the hike.

Netflix is fully aboard the stream-flation bandwagon.

The streaming giant just raised prices for its three plans, a little over a year after it last asked subscribers to pay more.

Netflix's standard ad-free plan now costs $19.99 a month, up from $17.99, while the premium 4K plan also got a $2 increase to $26.99 a month. The ad-supported Netflix subscription rose by a dollar to $8.99 a month.

While Netflix customers may complain about higher prices, most other major streamers have also steadily gotten more expensive.

Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, and Apple TV+ all raised prices last year following Netflix's January 2025 hike. Disney has raised the price of its flagship streaming service in each of the past four years.

Hollywood is trying to squeeze more money out of each streaming subscriber to improve or achieve profitability.

However, there are signs that consumers are sick of stream-flation.

Free streamers like YouTube have become increasingly popular in recent years, growing in viewership share on US TVs, as measured by Nielsen. Increased costs could be driving some consumers toward free streaming services ranging from the Roku Channel to Fox's Tubi.

The good news for Netflix is that it still looks like a solid deal for consumers after its latest round of price hikes.

Netflix's ad plan is cheaper than comparable plans for Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, and Peacock (it's the same price as Paramount+ and the stand-alone version of Amazon's Prime Video).

Netflix also offers a far larger library than most of its rivals and is watched more frequently than its peers. That made Netflix the best value by hours watched, UBS analysts wrote last year.

Still, the new price hike won't quiet the critics who said Netflix's failed pursuit of WBD was a sign the streamer was running short on avenues for organic user growth.