A KPMG survey highlights that only 26 percent of companies have full visibility into their AI spending, according to the Wall Street Journal. The shift to token-based billing for AI services is creating challenges for finance departments, as many firms lack clear oversight of their costs. Half of the companies surveyed have limited oversight, while 22 percent have no transparency at all, often only discovering their usage after the bill arrives. This lack of visibility is causing significant financial strain, with some companies exhausting their annual token and cloud budgets within months. One client saw a sixfold increase in token usage, according to KPMG.
Steve Chase, KPMG's global AI lead, told the WSJ that AI represents a new resource requiring careful management, with exponential growth in usage. Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, warned that more CFOs are likely to face unexpected costs this quarter, particularly with Anthropic bills. Analysts are drawing parallels to the pandemic-era cloud boom, where companies rushed to invest in cloud infrastructure only to later cut spending.
The WSJ reported that the rise of token-based billing is making tokens a key business metric. Companies are struggling to manage these costs effectively, with many caught off guard by their AI spending. The issue has prompted KPMG to work with several firms to address the problem.
Source: thedecoder
