Shopify, Roblox, and Spotify have reported that rising AI inference costs are negating savings from recent layoffs. During first-quarter earnings calls, these companies highlighted that while AI has allowed them to reduce headcount, the expenses associated with AI chips and token consumption are impacting gross margins. Roblox, in particular, has downgraded its full-year profit forecast due to AI costs, as it processes over 1.5 million inferences per second with more than 400 AI models. The company plans to charge developers for AI tools with high computational demands.Shopify and Spotify are facing similar challenges. Shopify's AI assistant has reduced customer service labor costs, but the savings are offset by high fees from large model calls. Spotify noted that despite a reduction in employee numbers, per-employee compute costs for AI tools like Claude Code and Codex are increasing. Pinterest also warned that its significant investments in AI chips will continue to pressure gross margins throughout the year.