Meta is building an internal AI spending tracker as the company braces for billions of dollars in AI costs in 2026.

What happened: Meta is introducing a platform called AI Gateway to monitor AI usage and spending across teams in real time, along with automated alerts for unusual spending spikes. The company is also encouraging employees to use its internal coding assistant MetaCode instead of third-party AI tools. A memo shared with around 6,000 employees outlined plans for spending controls, budgets, and usage limits, with new controls expected to roll out in the coming weeks.

Why it matters: Meta's AI costs have soared rapidly enough that the company is on track to spend billions of dollars on internal AI use alone in 2026. Employees and teams currently have limited visibility into their AI consumption and spending, which has driven the need for tighter oversight. This reflects a broader business challenge: AI token costs are climbing fast, and even large tech companies need systems to manage them.

What to watch: By 2027, Meta expects to manage AI tokens through a more structured framework with budgets and allocation decisions. For context, Uber Technologies exhausted its entire planned 2026 AI coding budget in just the first four months of the year due to soaring token consumption, signaling how quickly these costs can escalate across the industry.