Told to use AI more, workers torched $80,000 on a meme game, PDF conversions, and more

Some companies that have told workers to maximize their AI use are discovering that the approach can lead to ballooning bills rather than obvious savings. Reported examples include routine file-conversion work that did not require AI in the first place and an $80,000 video game built around internet meme imagery.

What happened?

According to a report from Futurism, at fintech firm Slash, the goal was to raise productivity while cutting costs, and employees were encouraged to lean heavily on AI coding tools.

One result, according to Futurism, was that a Slash employee used $80,000 in AI tokens to create a game called "brainrot shooter." Business Insider described the game as a minimal first-person shooter filled with enemies inspired by internet memes.

In a post on X, the company begged users to play the game. 

We encouraged the company last week to start vibe coding more but @nickbruhman burned $80k in credits on the Slash card for a brainrot shooter

Pls play it so we can write this off as a marketing expense https://t.co/mgHfidJ2R9

— Slash (@slashapp) June 23, 2026

"We encouraged the company last week to start vibe coding more but @nickbruhman burned $80k in credits on the Slash card for a brain rot shooter," the post wrote. "[Please] play it so we can write this off as a marketing expense."

A similar issue emerged at the consultant firm Accenture. 

According to reports from 404 Media cited by Futurism, employees were using company AI allowances for minor office chores, including converting PDF files into PowerPoint presentations. 

Justice Kwak, head of AI strategy at Accenture, said during an internal meeting, according to leaked audio obtained by 404 Media, "We're seeing from some of the data internally at least that it's actually not our engineers that are driving the token consumption. It's a lot of the non-engineers that are doing some of those behaviors."

Why does it matter?

Excessive AI spending does not stay confined to a company budget. If businesses spend heavily on tools that do not meaningfully improve output, those costs can later show up as higher prices, stricter productivity expectations, or pressure to reduce staff.

In addition, large AI models require enormous amounts of electricity and water, and the rapid growth of data centers can strain local power grids, increase utility costs, and introduce new security and misuse concerns if the technology expands faster than oversight can keep pace.

In the workforce, the rapid adoption of lackluster AI tools can turn basic tasks into wasteful, expensive AI prompts. 

What are people saying?

People under the Slash X post were quick to criticize how poor the game looks for $80,000 worth of AI tokens. 

"Eighty thousand dollars on that?" one user questioned. 

"That's wildly inefficient," another said. 

Others added to the criticism while questioning whether or not the post was engagement bait. 

"You wouldn't pay a programmer 80k for a project out the door like that," one user added. "Engagement bait?"

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