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Budgeting and cost control
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What are the five priorities for keeping AI spend under control?

AI spend is racing ahead of the controls. These five priorities decide who leads the AI economy, whether your company leads on AI or is just getting started.

Show me the five priorities
1Budgeting and cost control

What happens to your AI budget when the credits end?

76% of Tech Leaders ran AI agent spend over forecast, and the real cost is still ahead.

63%

have a quarter or more of their AI agent budget on promotional credits or introductory rates that expire by early 2027

Source: IDC FERS 2026 benchmark, North America sample

2Rethinking sourcing and vendor ecosystems

Are you paying more than your peers?

Reported discounts on the same enterprise AI products run from 0 to 70%, and IDC scores your vendors in every tech domain.

Reported discount range
OpenAI enterprise seats0–65%
OpenAI API annual commitments4–10%
Anthropic enterprise seats5–70%
Anthropic API annual commitments0–22%
0%70%
Where is your deal?

Source: IDC Sourcing Advisory Services, OpenAI and Anthropic 2026 Deal Guides; IDC vendor benchmarking

3Proving value

Does your AI business case count the central costs?

66% fund AI where the savings never meet the full costs. The department shows a gain; the company ends in the red.

Department gain, company loss
+$100K
Savings
−$20K
Dept AI cost
+$80K
Dept gain
−$100K
Central IT
−$20K
Net result
Peer ROI on the same use case
Peer median +38%
You?
Worst peer: −20%Best peers: +120%

66% (65.6% rounded): IDC AI Economics and Cost of Ownership benchmark, August 2026, n = 1,184. Charts are illustrative examples

4AI governance and ownership

Who owns your total AI bill?

58% of companies far over their AI agent budget cut headcount to cover it. Buying AI is now a committee decision.

Headcount cuts by overrun size
10–25% over budget35%cut headcount
More than 25% over58%cut headcount

35% and 58%: IDC FERS 2026 Wave 4, July 2026, combined n = 1,295, among companies over their planned AI agent spend

5IT benchmarking

Which maturity stage would your board say you are at?

Most organizations are still near the start: only 3.1% have reached the most mature stage.

AI maturity, worldwide
Least matureMost mature
You?

61.3%are still in the two least mature stages

35.6%sit in between

Source: IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: AI-Fueled Organization Worldwide, 2026, 1,900 organizations across 20 markets

Measure all five in one place. This is IDC Quanta – IDC’s AI platform that accelerates enterprise decisions and makes every technology investment defensible in the AI era.

From wherever you work

Five priorities, one answer: drop a proposal into your email or AI tools

EmailChatGPTClaudeCopilotGeminiYour enterprise AI
PDFOpenAI-Enterprise-Proposal.pdfPlaybook ready
Benchmark builtProposed: 18% off seats. The best peer deal reached 65%
Contract reviewedAuto-renewal and a 12-month price hold flagged
Reply drafted“Re: Enterprise proposal – revised terms”, ready for your review
Cited: IDC Sourcing Advisory Services deal guides, 2026

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