IFO4 Federation · Inaugural Community Call

The Economics of Intelligence

The True Cost of AI

Date

Thursday, May 29, 2026

Time

1:00 PM ET · 10:00 AM PT · 6:00 PM BST

Duration

60 minutes

Format

Live audio · Q&A · Transcript published after

What we'll cover

01
The Shift. From Infrastructure to Intelligence Spend.
- Why AI is not just another cloud cost.
- How companies are now buying decisions, not compute.
- Why traditional FinOps breaks here.
02
The True Cost of AI, Beyond Tokens.
- Tokens vs real cost.
- Hidden drivers: retries, latency loops, orchestration, agents.
- Why your AI bill is always higher than expected.
03
Unit Economics of AI.
- Cost per prompt.
- Cost per workflow.
- Cost per business outcome.
- The one metric every company is missing.
04
Where AI Spend Goes Wrong.
- Shadow AI usage across teams.
- No ownership between engineering, finance, and product.
- GPU waste and overprovisioning.
- Uncontrolled API usage.
05
Building AI Financial Operations.
- Budgeting for AI.
- Cost controls (rate limiting, model routing).
- Visibility across models, teams, and use cases.
- Governance without killing innovation.
06
Optimization. Cost vs Performance.
- When to use expensive vs cheap models.
- Prompt efficiency strategies.
- Caching, batching, and architecture decisions.
- Designing for cost-aware AI systems.
07
The Future of AI Economics.
- Agent-driven cost optimization.
- Real-time cost control systems.
- Cost per outcome as the new KPI.
- Why Financial Operations becomes the control layer of AI.
08
Open Q&A with the federation.

IFO4 Federation · Community Call · ifo4.org

IFO4 Federation · Inaugural Community Call

The True Cost of AI

Date

Thursday, May 29, 2026

Time

1:00 PM ET · 10:00 AM PT · 6:00 PM BST

Duration

60 minutes

Format

Live audio · Q&A · Transcript published after

What we'll cover

01
The Shift. From Infrastructure to Intelligence Spend.
- Why AI is not just another cloud cost.
- How companies are now buying decisions, not compute.
- Why traditional FinOps breaks here.
02
The True Cost of AI, Beyond Tokens.
- Tokens vs real cost.
- Hidden drivers: retries, latency loops, orchestration, agents.
- Why your AI bill is always higher than expected.
03
Unit Economics of AI.
- Cost per prompt.
- Cost per workflow.
- Cost per business outcome.
- The one metric every company is missing.
04
Where AI Spend Goes Wrong.
- Shadow AI usage across teams.
- No ownership between engineering, finance, and product.
- GPU waste and overprovisioning.
- Uncontrolled API usage.
05
Building AI Financial Operations.
- Budgeting for AI.
- Cost controls (rate limiting, model routing).
- Visibility across models, teams, and use cases.
- Governance without killing innovation.
06
Optimization. Cost vs Performance.
- When to use expensive vs cheap models.
- Prompt efficiency strategies.
- Caching, batching, and architecture decisions.
- Designing for cost-aware AI systems.
07
The Future of AI Economics.
- Agent-driven cost optimization.
- Real-time cost control systems.
- Cost per outcome as the new KPI.
- Why Financial Operations becomes the control layer of AI.
08
Open Q&A with the federation.

IFO4 Federation · Community Call · ifo4.org