Most companies have no idea what their AI actually costs — only 26% have full control over the spend

https://preview.redd.it/5sj5dfm5986h1.png?width=3840&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b0ff65491590f3fd2ab0823ad43660712869716 Most companies are flying blind when it comes to AI spending. According to a new KPMG study, only 26% of businesses deploying AI have full control over their expenses. Half of the companies exercise minimal control, while 22% only find out how much they spent after receiving the invoice. AI expenses are rising rapidly. Goldman Sachs reports that global spending on chips and data centers will climb from $765 billion this year to $1.6 trillion by 2031. The shift to token-based billing makes budget management extremely difficult. For instance, ride-hailing giant Uber spent its entire 2026 budget for Claude Code in just four months. Against this backdrop, Teradata CEO Steve Macmillan informed over 5,000 employees not to expect salary increases. The salary budget is instead being directed entirely toward AI development. Nvidia's Jensen Huang believes users will be willing to pay $1,000 per million tokens if it provides highly specialized answers. Source: [https://futurism.com/future-society/ceo-no-raises-money-ai](https://futurism.com/future-society/ceo-no-raises-money-ai) Additional: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/07/billions-spent-hypothetical-returns-the-ai-boom-explained-with-six-charts/](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/07/billions-spent-hypothetical-returns-the-ai-boom-explained-with-six-charts/) Additional: [https://the-decoder.com/frontier-radar-3-how-agentic-ai-is-turning-tokens-into-a-business-metric/](https://the-decoder.com/frontier-radar-3-how-agentic-ai-is-turning-tokens-into-a-business-metric/) Additional: [https://the-decoder.com/most-companies-are-flying-blind-on-ai-spending/](https://the-decoder.com/most-companies-are-flying-blind-on-ai-spending/)