{
  "id": 355529,
  "title": "Companies must adapt to rising AI costs, tech commentator says",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/09/companies-must-adapt-to-rising-ai-costs-tech-commentator-says",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-09T06:53:57.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "RNZ Business",
    "slug": "rnz-business",
    "url": "https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/946676/companies-must-adapt-to-rising-ai-costs-tech-commentator-says"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In the last three years, AI has been the most expensive experiment in technology history, according to Kristy Brown, CEO of Fusion5. She stated that a white paper released by Fusion5 advocates for a managed approach to AI agents to prevent runaway costs and ensure compliance with regulations. Fusion5 notes that many AI agents now operate on a pay-by-token system, rather than a flat user license. Brown explained that these agents, including Anthropic's Claude, Google's Gemini, and Microsoft's CoPilot, now carry real, metered costs for every prompt, reasoning step, and autonomous decision. She emphasized that businesses must monitor and control AI agents or risk incurring large bills and governance surprises. Brown stressed the importance of collecting business processes in an ontology, a structured description of the business model, to improve AI performance and prevent costly reasoning steps. She highlighted that businesses with incomplete data or digitized institutional knowledge pay twice: for extra compute and for mistakes. Fusion5's CEO believes that businesses adopting disciplined AI operations will be the ones that succeed when free money for AI runs out. She noted that major tech companies like Tesla, Uber, Meta, and Amazon are already implementing restrictions on AI agent usage. These companies are expected to spend nearly $700 billion on AI infrastructure this year, with OpenAI spending around $60 billion on compute against $13 billion in revenue. Microsoft, which leads with AI Agent Copilot in its Office suite, reported Azure revenue surpassing $100 billion this year, with over 30 million paid seats for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Brown suggested that a dedicated Agent Operations Centre (AOC) could help small to mid-sized businesses manage AI agents effectively, given the increasing operational challenges they face.",
  "summary": "Cheap use of AI tools is over: \"For the last three years, the most expensive experiment in technology history has run on someone else's money.\" Businesses now need to put guard rails in place, a tech commentator says.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "RNZ Business",
        "title": "Companies must adapt to rising AI costs, tech CEO says",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/09/companies-must-adapt-to-rising-ai-costs-tech-ceo-says",
        "published": "2026-08-09T08:12:00.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}