29261: chapter 1

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How rising AI costs are reshaping access and ROI

of senior leaders say their organization’s AI token usage and related costs have caused their organization to reconsider its approach

of senior leaders say their organization is concerned about AI token usage and related costs

are reassessing where to prioritize AI investments across functions

‘AI saves time’ is no longer a sufficient business case when the costs are mounting. Priorities must be focused on doing different things, not the same things differently.

98%

82%

37%

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The multi-trillion-dollar AI infrastructure buildout obviously isn’t going to finance itself. Now the bills are coming due. As AI is used in the most and least impactful ways imaginable, C-suites often lack the mechanisms for understanding the difference or the means to pinpoint ROI.

None of which calls into question the transformative power of AI: among senior leaders whose organization is investing in AI and uses tools that require AI tokens, more are considering expanding the scope of their AI rollout (37%) rather than narrowing it (15%) because of token usage and related costs. And more are speeding up the rollout (29%) instead of slowing it down (15%).

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Explore the data, insights, and executive perspectives shaping the future of enterprise AI adoption.

Dan Diasio

EY Global AI Consulting Leader

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