When the AI costs more than the coder
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Gartner warns that AI coding costs could rival or exceed developer salaries by 2028, driven by surging LLM token consumption and a shift to consumption-based pricing. In lower-salary markets like South Africa and India, this tipping point may arrive sooner. Data shows 6% of organisations already spend over $2,000 per developer per month on tokens — equivalent to a junior South African developer's full salary. Gartner identifies ungoverned agent autonomy, bloated context windows, and lack of vendor transparency as key cost drivers. Recommended mitigations include routing simpler tasks to cheaper models, training developers in context engineering, setting token thresholds, and incorporating token-usage reviews into sprint retrospectives.
