Per-seat AI coding tools waste idle capacity while heavy users hit limits early

Companies paying for per-seat AI coding subscriptions routinely lose unused capacity each week because allowances expire rather than roll over, while some engineers exhaust their allocation by mid-week. Usage is highly uneven across roles — engineers deep in migrations may max out for weeks, while those in meetings or non-coding roles barely touch their seats. The practical fix, according to the analysis, is redistributing work items to colleagues with spare capacity rather than sharing credentials or buying additional seats, both of which create new problems. This approach requires tasks to be clearly documented so they can be handed off, which the author notes is a prerequisite for good AI-assisted workflows in general. Any gains from this method should be counted as throughput improvements rather than cost savings, since money is only truly saved if the alternative would have been purchasing more seats.