Full Transparency for Smart AI Investments with IBM Apptio’s AI Total Cost of Ownership & Usage

Artificial intelligence is no longer a concept—it’s a reality, and it’s moving faster than any other technology since the rise of cloud computing. With 57% of CIOs now tasked with leading AI strategies (Gartner), AI is rapidly reshaping how organizations operate, compete, and grow. But, the complexity of AI means that CIOs face the growing challenge of embracing AI at scale while managing its financial impact.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for Business and IT leaders to understand the true total cost of ownership (TCO) and financial impact of their organization’s AI investments. In fact, over 90% of CIOs say that managing AI cost is a major barrier to unlocking its full value (Gartner).

Why? AI costs are dynamic, complex, and span multiple dimensions across cloud, labor, infrastructure, and application layers. These costs are rarely standardized or tracked in a unified way, making it challenging to understand the correlation between the cost of AI tools and their usage within organizations.

Without visibility into what drives TCO, usage, and adoption, organizations lack the adequate insights to make fully-informed AI decisions. This may lead to the risk of AI model and solution sprawl, inefficient and unsustainable adoption, and missed opportunities to optimize and rationalize their AI investments.

That’s where IBM Apptio’s newest solution comes in: AI Total Cost of Ownership & Usage.

Purpose-built to deliver full lifecycle tracking of your AI investments, it gives Executives, Business Leaders, IT, and Finance a unified, data-driven view of their total AI costs and usage.

With this level of transparency, organizations can:

• Manage AI costs responsibly
• Align spend to business value, and
• Scale AI initiatives with confidence and control

Here’s what the solution provides:

AI Cost Transparency & Allocation

To manage AI investment effectively, the first step is understanding the true cost. With flexible, purpose-built AI cost modeling, users gain a comprehensive view of the TCO across all AI initiatives, no matter where in the lifecycle they are. This includes understanding the prime AI cost drivers across cloud, labor, infrastructure, and application layers. Rather than relying on disparate sources of AI cost data, AI TCO & Usage allows for flexible and accurate tracking of AI costs.

By establishing AI cost transparency, users can answer fundamental questions like:

• What is the TCO of all my AI investments?
• Which components, such as AI models, AI solutions, or infrastructure, are driving the most cost?
• What are the unit costs of the AI solutions we deploy?

AI Usage & Consumption

Understanding how AI is being used – and who it’s being used by – is just as important to understand when considering your AI investments. Analyze AI consumption patterns over time to understand adoption, usage trends, and predict future AI usage. A consolidated view of units of measure like tokens, users, and license numbers provide a granular, consolidated lens of how AI tools and models are being used across the organization.

These insights help answer questions like:

• How is AI being consumed across AI models, AI solutions, and Business Units?
• What is the ratio of AI Input vs Output tokens?
• Are there trends in adoption and usage that could indicate inefficiencies or unexpected cost drivers?

Enable Responsible AI Adoption

Once costs and usage are transparent, organizations have the data to take the next step and assess their AI investments. The interplay of cost and usage uncovers where inefficiencies may lie and where there is opportunity to reconsider AI models or solutions.

By allocating AI usage up to the business unit level through showback, business units are empowered to make smarter, more responsible investment decisions around how they adopt and use AI through rationalizing AI solutions or adopting more cost-efficient ones.

Answer questions like:

• Which business units are consuming the most AI resources?
• Do we have redundant AI models or applications that we could retire?
• What AI solutions can we scale across other parts of the organization?

Get More Business Value from AI

Whether you’re looking to get started with AI in your organization, or are looking to understand your AI costs better, IBM Apptio’s AI TCO & Usage solution is a powerful tool for any organization looking to get the most value from their AI initiatives.

AI TCO & Usage gives your organization the clarity, transparency, and control it needs to manage AI at scale. Bring all your AI financials into focus so you can invest with confidence AI is the future—IBM Apptio ensures you make it a financial sustainable one. Sign up for a demo to learn more.

Learn more about AI TCO & Usage