Steven Zolman

Oct. 16,2026 | Cloud, AI

You are not transforming. You are subsidizing.

This is now visible in both the data and specific company outcomes.

Mavvrik’s 2026 State of AI Cost Governance Report: Nearly half of organizations escalated unexpected AI costs to the board; 25% delayed or canceled initiatives; only 11% can forecast AI spend within ±10%.

Flexera 2026 State of the Cloud: Waste on infrastructure and platform services rose to 29%, driven by AI workloads.

Token prices have fallen sharply while enterprise AI bills have risen dramatically.

AI to ROI Big Story: The AI Budget Dance is Underway

Public examples of cost overruns and limited visibility:

1. Uber - Exhausted its entire 2026 AI budget by April after rapid rollout of agentic coding tools. Average monthly cost per engineer hit $150–$250 (power users $500–$2,000). The company imposed a $1,500 monthly cap per tool. Leadership noted difficulty linking the spend to measurable product value.

2. Amazon - Internal projects produced large overruns, including ~$1.8 million (860% over budget) on a failed Claude-based author-matching effort that went undetected for five months, plus separate incidents of ~$541,000 and ~$134,000. Amazon removed internal usage leaderboards after “tokenmaxxing” and added spending controls.

3. Broader pattern - Microsoft canceled many internal Claude Code licenses due to cost pressure. Workato saw spend jump ~7× when token-based pricing took effect. Multiple organizations reported emergency freezes or caps after uncapped usage produced bills far beyond forecasts.

The Budgeting Mistake That Cost Uber its Annual IT Spend in 4 Months.

Managing Agentic AI Costs at Scale

Capturing the Value, Not Transferring It

Most organizations only see the tip of the AI Iceberg—the visible token bills, model licenses, and cloud invoices. The real economic leakage sits below the waterline:

Deal economics based on list prices and published volume discounts

• A fragmented, sub-optimized call architecture that drives uncontrolled consumption

• Misaligned Ts&Cs that transfer economic risk to clients, and high margins to suppliers

• A demand layer not designed to keep usage tightly aligned with actual business value

Most organizations are still treating AI and cloud as a technology problem. The economics are a commercial problem.

AI Cost and Value Optimization

NET(net) has spent ~25 years exclusively on the buy side, optimizing ~$2.5 trillion in technology deal value and consistently delivering ~25% in savings and benefit. We do this by redesigning three layers that most buyers leave untouched:

• Call architecture - so technical consumption is efficient and intentional instead of open-ended

• Contractual layer - price protections, volume commitments, true-up controls, exit rights, and liability allocation that actually hold

• Demand layer - so every unit of consumption is tied to measurable outcomes rather than unchecked usage

Our proprietary Federated Market Intelligence data layer is built from over two decades of real negotiated outcomes across thousands of live agreements—not public benchmarks or supplier-influenced data. Because we take no compensation from the supply chain and act solely as client advocates, we can surface material savings even inside the world’s most sophisticated enterprises.

Recent examples of the difference:

• Financial Services Firm – Reduced annual cloud costs tied to AI-driven lending workloads by $20 million through improved cost visibility and engineering accountability, enabling rightsizing, waste elimination, and better unit economics.

• Technology Company – Optimized commitment structures to achieve an effective savings rate of 29.9% on AWS and 31.2% on Azure while reducing commitment lock-in risk and maintaining high coverage, without adding headcount for rate optimization.

• Global Healthcare Enterprise – Reduced Azure waste by approximately 20% over 18 months on a ~$45M estate, realizing about $1.9 million in verified annualized savings through rightsizing, commitment optimization, idle resource cleanup, and stronger FinOps processes.

These results are not one-time negotiations. They represent a structural shift that keeps supplier economics from systematically outpacing client value.

Final Word

Organizations either capture the value or transfer it to suppliers. Most AI and cloud strategies are currently doing the latter.

Which side of the economics are you on?

About NET(net)

At NET(net), we don't just optimize IT investments, we weaponize them for competitive advantage. As the world's leading technology investment optimization firm, we've spent over two decades perfecting the art and science of extracting maximum value from technology supply chains while neutralizing vendor pricing manipulation.

Our battle - hardened methodology has influenced trillions of dollars in technology investments, captured hundreds of billions in documented value, and transformed how enterprises approach every facet of IT spend - from emerging technology such as AI, ML, IoT, RPA, Quantum, and Blockchain, to IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, to enterprise hardware and software solutions, and professional services arrangements including strategic outsourcing relationships.

We're not consultants who theorize about optimization, we're the specialists who help you devise and execute your strategy. Our proven frameworks turn vendor pricing chaos into strategic opportunity, licensing complexity into competitive advantage, and cost centers into value engines. Whether you're facing an aggressive vendor audit, navigating a forced migration, or simply refusing to accept runaway IT costs, NET(net) delivers the expertise, experience, and execution you need to dominate rather than merely survive.

Founded in 2002, NET(net) has established itself as the essential strategic partner for enterprises and technology providers who demand performance, not promises. We've mastered every major area of IT optimization because we understand that in today's vendor-hostile environment, half-measures guarantee defeat.

Experience the NET(net) advantage. Contact us at info@netnetweb.com, visit www.netnetweb.com, or call +1 (616) 546-3100 to discover how we can transform your technology investments from cost burden to strategic weapon.

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