AI FinOps

Cut AI costs 40-60%
without cutting capability.

Most enterprises overspend on GenAI by 3-5x before any AI FinOps practice is in place. We fix that in weeks, not months.

The problem

Most organisations can't tell you what they're spending on AI. Or why.

Every team is using GPT or Claude Opus for everything - summarisation, classification, complex reasoning - all at top-tier pricing. There is no breakdown by team, use case, or model. Shadow AI deployments are multiplying ungoverned infrastructure and compliance gaps.

Finance asks questions IT cannot fully answer. Growing invoices with no clear owner. A CFO who wants numbers, not narratives.

What AI spend management actually requires

  • Know exactly what each team, model, and use case is costing - not estimates. Actual unit economics.
  • One view across Claude, GPT, Gemini, open-source models, and fine-tuned deployments.
  • Stop paying Claude Opus pricing for tasks Claude Haiku handles at 30-50% lower cost.
  • Governance alignment under audit and regulatory scrutiny.
  • Forecasting that holds as usage scales from 10 to 10,000 users.
Solution

Financial discipline built into how AI operates.

Six capabilities work together to bring financial control to GenAI - without replacing your stack. Model right-sizing, prompt compression, semantic caching, and context engineering typically deliver 40-60% cost reduction within 30 days, and scale without ongoing engineering effort.

Claude
GPT
Gemini
Bedrock
  • Cost visibility

    What each team, model, and workload is spending - cost-per-token, cost-per-API-call, and cost-per-outcome by use case. Clear unit economics. No more estimates.

  • Cost optimisation

    Model right-sizing, prompt compression, semantic caching, and context engineering. Typical result - 40-60% cost reduction within 30 days. Scales without engineering effort.

  • Policy and guardrails

    AI Gateway deployed in your AWS environment. Centralised routing, tagging, chargeback by team and project. Full audit trail maintained continuously - not assembled before each review.
    See more at AI Control Plane

  • Spend attribution

    Every token cost attributed to a team, project, and use case. Finance gets a cost breakdown they can report on directly. No chasing engineers, no manual reconciliation.

  • Model right-sizing

    We commonly find enterprises running Claude Opus, GPT, or Gemini Pro on tasks where Claude Haiku, GPT mini, or Gemini Flash delivers equivalent output at a fraction of the cost. We map every use case to the right model tier and validate output quality before and after.

  • Audit readiness

    Continuous usage logs, cost records, and model decision audit trails. Built for EU AI Act compliance timelines and regulated-industry reporting requirements. Audit reviews run cleanly - no scramble before every submission.

Not sure where to start? AI Spend Forensics gives you a clear cost baseline in weeks.

Spend map, unit economics, savings roadmap, and a board-ready summary. First insights in 2 weeks.

See how it works →
How it works

Visibility first. Control second. Governance that scales.

No new tooling to procure. No restructuring of your team.

  • Establish what you're actually spending (Inform)

    A complete baseline of GenAI usage across teams and models. Token costs, inference spend, API volumes, broken down by use case and business unit. You stop estimating and start knowing.

  • Embed cost controls into operations (Optimise)

    Routing policies and usage guardrails go directly into your environment through an AI Gateway. Model right-sizing, prompt caching, and context engineering reduce spend in line with business value. It stays there without ongoing manual effort.

  • Governance that scales with adoption (Operate)

    Reporting, chargeback, and optimisation cadence are in place. As GenAI usage grows, so does financial visibility and control. For organisations running AI in production, Managed AI extends this into full infrastructure operations (see /solutions/managed-ai/).

Business impact

How AI cost reduction compounds over time

Clients typically see 40-60% cost reduction. One engagement reduced a $4,800/month audio-text analytics workload to $1,300/month. It paid for itself in two months.

When cost visibility is built into how AI operates, the outcomes compound. AI FinOps deploys inside your infrastructure and connects directly to broader governance initiatives. Starting with AI Spend Forensics means measurable value from week one - before any long-term commitment.

You gain:

  • Attribute 100% of AI spend to teams and use cases - not 60% in a shared bucket.
  • Forecasting accuracy within 10% of actual, month over month - budget surprises become rare.
  • Typical model right-sizing saves 30-50% on inference costs alone - no budget wasted on overkill models for simple tasks.
  • AI adoption accelerates - the financial guardrails are already in place.
  • Audio-text analytics

    $4,800/mo to $1,300/mo - open-source model, semantic caching, prompt compression; quality held. About $42k/year savings.

  • RAG document Q&A

    $8,200/year to $3,600/year - OpenSearch to S3 Vector, Opus to Haiku, chunk optimisation.

  • Coding agents

    2M tokens/run to 500k - prompt caching, context management, usage controls. About $27,600/year saved.

  • GenAI gateway

    Four teams, 500 users - $180k/year to $72k/year via gateway, model choice, and infrastructure optimisation.

Example outcomes

How quickly can AI costs be reduced?

Illustrative savings from real engagement patterns - ask us for sector-specific references.

  • Audio-text analytics system

    73% cost reduction, zero quality impact. Before $4,800/month, after $1,300/month. High-volume automated audio content across multiple languages; AWS Transcribe replaced with open-source model, auto-scaling, semantic caching, and prompt compression. About $42,000/year savings; engagement paid for itself in two months.

  • RAG pipeline - document Q&A

    Before $8,200/year, after $3,600/year (56% reduction). OpenSearch to S3 Vector migration, model swap from Claude Opus to Claude Haiku, chunk optimisation. About $4,600/year saved.

  • Coding agents - enterprise workflow

    Before 2 million tokens per run, after 500k (75% reduction). Prompt caching, context management, usage controls. About $27,600/year saved.

  • GenAI gateway - four teams, 500 users

    Before $180k/year, after $72k/year (60% reduction). AI Gateway deployment, model choice optimisation, infrastructure optimisation. About $107k/year saved.

Customer results

Proven in practice.

One real metric does more than any number of claims. Ask us for references in your sector.

Frequently asked questions.

What is AI FinOps?

AI FinOps (sometimes called FinOps for AI) is a service that gives your organisation clear visibility and disciplined control over AI spend. As teams adopt more models, tools, and agents, costs grow faster than expected and harder to attribute. AI FinOps tracks where spend is going, which use cases are generating value, and where there is waste - then acts on it.

How is AI FinOps different from standard cloud FinOps?

Standard cloud FinOps covers compute, storage, and networking. AI introduces different cost drivers - model inference costs, API call volumes, agent runtime, and prompt token usage. These do not map neatly to existing cloud cost categories. The FinOps Foundation's framework for AI identifies token-based pricing, GPU scarcity, volatile model costs, and cross-functional spend attribution as the key differences from traditional cloud FinOps. Our service addresses all of these, tracking spend at the model, use case, and team level.

What does AI FinOps actually measure?

AI FinOps measures spend per model, spend per use case, spend per team, and cost-per-outcome for each AI workload. It identifies underused deployments, over-provisioned inference infrastructure, and use cases where cost has grown beyond the value being generated.

Who should own AI FinOps in our organisation?

AI FinOps sits at the intersection of IT, finance, and the teams building or using AI. It works best when there is a named owner - typically a head of AI or IT operations or a technology finance lead - supported by accurate data from an AI Gateway. Firemind provides that gateway and the ongoing service to act on what it surfaces.

How quickly can we see results?

AI Spend Forensics delivers a complete cost baseline, savings roadmap, and board-ready summary within 2 weeks. Optimisation sprints deliver measurable cost reduction within 30 days. No long-term commitment required to start.

Take control of GenAI spend before it takes control of your budget.

GenAI budgets will keep growing. Make sure your financial oversight keeps pace - starting with a clear baseline in two weeks.

Your benefits:

  • Clear attribution - by team, model, and use case.
  • Board-ready visibility - from AI Spend Forensics in two weeks.
  • Governance that scales - as adoption grows - not after the fact.
  • No stack rip-out - FinOps discipline inside how you already operate.

What happens next?

Talk.

A 30-minute conversation about your GenAI spend and governance goals.

Forensics.

Optional AI Spend Forensics for a spend map, unit economics, and savings roadmap.

Operate.

Embed controls and reporting that scale with usage.

Book a focused 30-minute conversation about AI FinOps.