The Pillars
Inform: cost visibility per team, workload, feature. Optimize: reduce waste without impairing outcomes. Operate: continuous improvement and accountability. Classic FinOps applied to AI.
Attribution
Every agent call tagged with team, feature, customer (where applicable). Aggregate cost visible at each level. ‘The AI budget’ is useless; per-team, per-feature attribution enables decisions.
Unit Economics
Cost per resolution, per lead qualified, per case summarized. Compare to human cost equivalent and to revenue generated. When the unit economics don’t work, kill the feature or fix the cost.
Governance
Budget ceilings per team. Alerts approaching limits. Auto-throttling at hard limits. Monthly FinOps review. Without governance, ‘unlimited AI’ becomes ‘unlimited bill.’