Internal Disney documents reveal how employees are using AI at work

Disney workers are captivated by AI — with some heavy users accessing chatbots thousands of times each month.

Recently, several Disney tech workers have been given access to an "AI Adoption Dashboard" that details AI interaction among coding tools Cursor and Claude, based on tokens used and requests made, two tech workers shared with Business Insider. Similar dashboards are present at big firms like Meta and JPMorgan.

Images of the dashboard seen by Business Insider display AI use among around 4,800 product and tech staffers within Disney Entertainment and ESPN during a nine-day work span in mid-April. Disney had around 231,000 staff globally as of September 27.

This dashboard offers the most distinct perspective yet on Disney's AI usage as CEO Josh D'Amaro succeeds longtime Disney leader Bob Iger.

A source familiar with the company's strategy stated they weren't attempting to encourage or reward what's known as "tokenmaxxing," where software programmers consume tokens at a high rate to exhibit productivity.

Nonetheless, it feels natural for some employees to treat the AI usage tracker as a "leaderboard," as one staffer explained.

There are "achievements" for AI users to earn, including streaks for consecutive days utilising the tools, as shown in an image reviewed by Business Insider.

The top user of Claude processed 234.2 million tokens by using the Anthropic chatbot roughly 460,600 times across the nine workdays, the dashboard revealed. That's over 51,000 activations daily.

Staff involved in products and technology across Disney and ESPN utilised 3.1 billion Claude tokens and 13.3 billion Cursor tokens over the nine workdays, according to an image of the dashboard.

Disney's token consumption is "in the middle of the spectrum," fitting "perfectly" for a non-tech-centric company, noted Val Bercovici, the chief AI officer at WEKA, after reviewing the figures. He mentioned that the Claude values were "minimal" in comparison to the Cursor figures.

One Disney tech worker estimated costs as roughly $1 for every 16,700 Claude tokens used and $1 per 21,200 Cursor tokens, based on dashboard statistics. Bercovici believed these are fair rates.

If all dashboard users paid a similar amount as the tech employee, Disney's estimated expenses for Claude and Cursor would be about $185,000 and $627,000, accordingly.

That being said, it's challenging to precisely measure how much Disney's AI engagement costs the company.

Tokens are "not a flawless measure" of real-world costs, stated Will Sommer, a quantitative modeling analyst at research firm Gartner who focuses on AI usage.

Token use and pricing can fluctuate greatly based on various factors such as the type of request and model utilised, Sommer explained.