Amazon employees are gaming their own AI metrics by creating unnecessary agents with the internal tool MeshClaw, driven by pressure to show high adoption rates. Workers told the Financial Times that the company tracks token consumption and aims for 80% of developers to use AI weekly, turning the tool into a numbers game rather than a productivity booster.

MeshClaw draws inspiration from OpenClaw, an AI tool that runs locally on hardware and has a reputation for both productivity gains and real risks. Earlier this year, a director at Meta Superintelligence Labs had OpenClaw nearly wipe out her entire email inbox, a stark reminder of what happens when AI gets too much autonomy.

Amazon denied having company-wide AI usage metrics or internal leaderboards, but the perverse incentives created by token tracking speak for themselves. Employees reported that when managers monitor usage, competitive behavior takes over, producing inflated activity rather than meaningful work.