McKinsey warns that AI may get a lot more expensive for companies
McKinsey warns companies that AI spending may rise further and be less predictable with adoption of agents
TL;DR
- AI agents, which complete tasks, can be significantly more expensive to run than text-based AI tools.
- The cost of task completion by different AI agents can vary by as much as 30 times.
- Around a third of organizations spend over 10% of their technology budgets on AI.
- 60% of companies surveyed plan to increase their AI spending in the next year.
- AI spending is starting to create constraints in operating costs for some companies.
- Software-development teams using agents for coding are particularly affected due to high token consumption.
- Companies like Amazon, Coinbase, and Salesforce have started limiting AI use or tracking usage due to rising costs.
- Agentic AI can reduce human time on certain tasks by 35%-70% or more, but value must justify the cost.
- The relevance of managing AI agent costs is expected to grow significantly in the next 12 months.