Legora CTO: tokenmaxxing is a 'really stupid way' to encourage AI use

Jacob Lauritzen, Legora's chief technology officer, said there are far better ways to encourage AI use than tokenmaxxing. "A lot of people, say, get a leaderboard and bring up token usage at performance reviews," he said. "That leads to tokenmaxing, which is people just burn tokens just to look good.

That's a really stupid way to do anything." Lauritzen, who joined the legal AI startup in 2024, suggested hack days or demos so employees can show what they're building and the efficiency gains they've achieved. "Reward them for being effective and efficient and having more output, not for necessarily using AI," he said.

He acknowledged a trade-off for fast-growing companies. "Is it worth us spending a ton of tokens to learn if it maybe gives us 20% efficiency for us? Yes, we have a really high opportunity cost," Lauritzen said. His comments arrive as some firms move from tokenmaxxing to token capping amid rising costs.

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