While AI tokens sound like a powerful perk, they may come with hidden downsides. Unlike salary or equity, tokens don’t accumulate long-term value—they don’t vest, appreciate, or strengthen future job negotiations. Critics argue that companies could use token allocations to make compensation packages look bigger without increasing actual financial rewards.

There’s also growing concern about expectations. If companies are investing heavily in compute for each engineer, the pressure to produce more output increases significantly. Over time, this raises a bigger question: if AI can handle more work, how many human engineers will companies actually need?