Meta drops AI usage from engineer performance reviews after "tokenmaxxing" backfires

Meta removed AI-tool usage from engineer performance reviews after 'tokenmaxxing' inflated metrics, with internal AI costs heading toward billions in 2026.

Executives Maher Saba and Santosh Janardhan said in an internal memo, seen by The Information, that AI dashboards and token counters will no longer factor into performance reviews; quality, speed, and complexity of work will count instead. The change follows 'tokenmaxxing,' where employees burned AI tokens in bulk to rank on internal leaderboards. Internal AI use is projected to cost billions in 2026, prompting Meta to introduce budgets and a central dashboard starting in 2027. Separately, Meta is testing its AI agent tool Hatch for autonomous computer tasks, though some employees resist linking it to personal accounts over privacy concerns.