The media narrative around token maxing and CFO anxiety is creating confusion at the executive level, just as AI is becoming genuinely transformative. Stories about companies blowing through annual token budgets in a quarter have leaders reaching for the brakes. Adam and Andy argue this is exactly backward.

The core reframe: AI isn't a line item in your tech stack. It's intelligence as a service. The cost of fully deploying AI across a 100-person company runs close to one headcount. If your employees are hitting usage limits and asking for more, that is your ROI signal, with or without a spreadsheet to prove it. When you aim AI at growth and differentiation rather than cost savings, the returns become clearer and more meaningful.

Andy's unsolicited advice: stop measuring ROI altogether for now. The obsession with proving returns is impeding the experimentation that would actually teach you where to aim the AI machine. Aim it at growth. The returns will follow. And if you want to know what AI can really do, try token maxing for a week.