NI
Nivetha Purusothaman, Dr. William Cunningham
4/13/2026
Agentic AI costs more than you budgeted. Here's why.
TL;DR
Agentic AI deployments often exceed budgets because teams focus on development costs while overlooking operating expenses: token usage, governance, evaluation infrastructure, security, and scaling all compound rapidly. Most enterprises don't model these hidden costs until they're already absorbing them in production. Accurate ROI requires forecasting the full total cost of ownership, not just initial build.
- •Hidden operating costs (tokens, governance, evaluation, security, scaling) often exceed initial development spend
- •Most enterprises don't forecast these expenses until they're in production, forcing budget adjustments
- •Accurate business cases require full TCO modeling, not just development budget
Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.
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