Microsoft’s top AI boss has a message for engineers using GitHub Copilot

Microsoft EVP Jay Parikh has told engineers that “tokenmaxxing is not what we are optimizing for,” in an internal memo first reported by 404 Media. Microsoft has made OpenAI’s cheaper GPT-5.6 the default internal model, set AI token budget targets for every division, and given employees dashboards to track individual GitHub Copilot spend. Many engineers, the guidelines note, burn hundreds to thousands of dollars monthly.