The e-commerce group had posted team-wide statistics on AI usage by its staff, but recently limited access so that only employees themselves and managers can view their stats. Managers are discouraged from using token use to measure performance, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Meta employees have similarly engaged in so-called “tokenmaxxing” to improve their standing on internal leader boards.
The MeshClaw tool that some employees have used to increase their statistics was inspired by OpenClaw, which became a viral sensation in February. OpenClaw allows users to run agents locally on their own hardware, including computers and laptops.
Amazon’s MeshClaw can initiate code deployments, triage emails, and interact with apps such as Slack, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company said in a statement that the tool enabled “thousands of Amazonians to automate repetitive tasks each day” and was one example of the group “empowering teams” to experiment and adopt AI tools.
“We’re committed to the safe, secure, and responsible development and deployment of generative AI for our customers,” it added.
More than three dozen Amazon employees worked on the in-house tool, according to internal documents. One recent memo describing the bot said: “It dreams overnight to consolidate what it learned, monitors your deployments while you’re in meetings, and triages your email before you wake up.”
Multiple Amazon employees said they were concerned about the security risks of an AI tool that was granted permission to act on a user’s behalf. This risks situations where the agent may make errors or undertake unintended actions.
“The default security posture terrifies me,” one employee said. “I’m not about to let it go off and just do its own thing.”
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