Microsoft canceled internal cloud code licenses. The token bill became untenable.
Per Matt Turck (
@mattturck) on The MAD Podcast. This is now the number one or two concern for enterprise AI leads, per Aaron Levie's (
@levie) conversations with 200 CIOs this year.
The mechanism: AI tools that launched on flat subscriptions - Cursor, internal Microsoft code tools - repriced to per-token billing. Enterprises built budgets for the old model. The new model hit them mid-deployment.
This pressure compounds as models get more capable. It does not resolve.
What the token cost shock means for enterprise SaaS positions:
Source: The MAD Podcast with Matt Turck -