AI is challenging Silicon Valley’s long-held assumption that skilled human workers are its most valuable resource.

Anthropic’s IPO filing showed that, in April, the retail-priced value of Claude used internally exceeded monthly employee compensation costs excluding stock awards—but that measure does not mean the company spent more cash on AI than on salaries.

The value of Anthropic’s internal AI usage then surged, rising more than 250-fold between January and September.

By September, Claude had written more than 90% of the code added to Anthropic’s software, while revenue was growing much faster than headcount.

Together, these figures help explain why some technology companies are considering AI tokens—the units used to measure AI consumption—as a fourth element of employee compensation alongside salary, bonuses and stock awards.