AI Costs Are Growing Faster Than Your Budget — We Fix That in 45 Days
LDS delivers full visibility into your AI spend across SaaS, cloud, and data platforms — with proven unit economics and contractual guardrails before costs spiral out of control. Typical outcome: 15–35% reduction in projected AI spend.
AI Is Not a Feature — It Is a New Consumption Model
Most organizations see AI adoption and spending accelerate dramatically, yet few have the visibility or governance to control it. Tokens, prompts, GPUs, and data scans replace predictable license metrics — and pilots silently become permanent run-rate costs.
Is This You?
- ▸AI costs are growing faster than your budget forecasts
- ▸You lack guardrails over AI consumption tokens or credits
- ▸OpenAI, Anthropic, agents, and add-ons appeared without ROI tracking
- ▸You want to cut projected AI spend by 15–35%+
- ▸You need benchmarks before your next AI renewal
- ▸AI shelfware is becoming your fastest-growing cost center
Reasoning Cost
Tokens, prompts, API calls, and model inference billed per interaction. These costs compound with every new user, autonomous agent, and AI workflow.
Data Cost
Data queries, scans, pipeline ingestion, and storage consumed by AI feature enablement — often invisible in standard licensing reviews.
AI Credits in SaaS Uplifts
Embedded AI features bundled into SaaS renewals, vendor-driven tier upgrades, Copilot add-ons, and AI credit models layered into contracts.
Four Integrated Modules — Delivered in 45 Days
LDS's AICCO review gives you full visibility, ownership accountability, forecasting discipline, and commercial control — before AI spend becomes your largest uncontrolled cost center.
AI Spend Baseline & Exposure Assessment
A structured assessment to identify, categorize, and quantify all AI-related spend across SaaS, cloud, data platforms, and embedded licensing. Establishes a verified cost baseline and exposes hidden cost drivers.
- Full visibility of direct and indirect AI costs
- Identification of embedded AI license uplifts and add-ons
- Mapping of token, inference, and GPU consumption
- Detection of fragmented or duplicated AI initiatives
- Executive-ready AI cost baseline for reporting and planning
AI Cost Optimization & Right-Sizing
Commercial and entitlement review of AI add-ons, Copilots, premium tiers, and credit-based models across Microsoft Copilot, Salesforce Einstein, ServiceNow and other major SaaS providers. We surface AI shelfware before your next renewal.
- Reduction of unused or low-value AI add-ons
- Clarity on pooled vs. per-user AI credit models
- Improved negotiation leverage at renewal
- Avoidance of modern AI shelfware costs
- Clear entitlement tracking for all AI features
- Reduced centralized 'shadow' AI spend
AI Forecasting & Financial Modeling
Forecasting models tailored to token-based, inference-led, and GPU-intensive workloads. Addresses non-linear consumption growth and experimentation risk with scenario modeling built from your actual usage trajectory.
- Improved predictability of AI run-rate costs
- Scenario modeling for adoption growth (monthly & annual)
- Better renewal and budget planning
- Early warning system for cost acceleration trends
- Alignment between AI scale decisions and financial impact
AI Contractual Benchmarking & Guardrail Recommendations
Benchmarking your AI SKUs against customers of similar size and spend, combined with actionable contractual recommendations. We help you establish hard contractual guardrails — caps, overage protections, and opt-out rights.
- Peer benchmarking of AI SKU costs vs. similar-sized organizations
- Optimization of AI ownership accountability and spend governance
- Contractual guardrail recommendations (T&C language)
- Consumption caps, overage rate commitments, opt-out rights
- Cost per prompt, per user, per model, or per transaction
Flexible Delivery — Built Around Your AI Journey
Choose the engagement model that fits your timeline and maturity level.
Standalone Assessment
A focused, time-boxed AI spend baseline and right-sizing review — fast, actionable, and self-contained. Ideal for organizations that need an immediate picture of their AI cost exposure before a major renewal or board-level discussion.
Ongoing AI Cost Advisory
Continuous monitoring, quarterly benchmarking, and governance support as your AI footprint grows and evolves. LDS acts as your embedded AI cost advisor — tracking new SKUs, flagging contract risks, and keeping your governance posture current.
From Baseline to Governance — in 45 Days
A structured, minimally disruptive process with clear deliverables at every phase.
Assess
- ▸Stakeholder workshops
- ▸AI platform & contract inventory
- ▸Entitlement review
- ▸AI usage/consumption data collection
Analyze
- ▸Spend baseline & cost mapping
- ▸Unit economics design
- ▸Monthly trend analysis
- ▸Pricing benchmark review
Optimize
- ▸Forecasting model (monthly & annual)
- ▸AI consumption optimization
- ▸Waste & idle resource identification
- ▸Renegotiation strategy
Govern
- ▸Executive savings report
- ▸Governance & guardrail framework
- ▸Contractual protection recommendations
- ▸AI cost governance maturity roadmap
Real AI Cost Savings. Real Clients. Real Results.
From Salesforce Agentforce Flexcredits to Anthropic Claude API, LDS has helped organizations take control of their AI spend across every major platform.
A 22,000-employee firm rolled out Agentforce enterprise-wide with a large Flexcredit pool. In 12 months, consumption surged 340% with no visibility into which agents or teams were driving spend — and renewal pricing was escalating.
LDS conducted a full Flexcredit consumption audit, mapped agent conversation billing by team, benchmarked pricing against comparable enterprise customers, and identified over-provisioned pools, idle automations, and duplicate Einstein features.
14,000 IT users with Now Assist SKUs across ITSM, ITOM, and HRSD without consumption governance. Generative credit usage was opaque, renewal costs increased 28% YoY, and IT finance lacked tooling to validate billing claims.
LDS performed full Now Assist SKU adoption analysis, validated actual consumption against contracted credits, identified underutilized seats, and built a cost governance model with defined ownership per business unit.
OpenAI API and ChatGPT Enterprise across 11 product teams with no centralized visibility into token consumption or model tier selection. Costs scaled non-linearly as teams defaulted to GPT-4 for tasks suited to lower-cost models.
LDS mapped token consumption by team, model tier, and use case; benchmarked per-token pricing; and developed a model-routing policy directing workloads to the appropriate tier. Operator credit usage was reconciled against invoiced amounts.
8,500 knowledge workers with Claude API tokens and enterprise seats across legal, research, and advisory practices. Token consumption was billed centrally with no cost-center allocation, and seats were over-purchased at rollout.
LDS audited Claude consumption and seat utilization, built a cost allocation model by practice area, benchmarked enterprise pricing, identified 29% of seats as inactive, and developed a consolidated governance framework with monthly budgets.
Don't Take Our Word for It
Hear from the executives who took control of their AI spend with LDS.
We had no idea how much of our Agentforce Flexcredit pool was sitting idle. LDS uncovered the waste in weeks and gave us the leverage we needed to renegotiate renewal terms we never thought were on the table.
ServiceNow's generative AI billing was a black box to us. LDS translated it into something our finance team could actually act on. The governance model they built has been transformative for our IT cost discipline.
Eleven product teams, all defaulting to GPT-4 for everything. LDS showed us exactly where we were over-spending and built the routing logic to fix it. Our API costs dropped materially within the first billing cycle.
We were paying for Claude enterprise seats that hadn't been accessed in months. LDS brought structure to our AI spend and gave every practice leader real accountability over their usage.
Real Experts. Real Data. Real Savings.
LDS is a leading provider of Benchmarking, Software Asset Management, Audit Defense, and SaaS Optimization. Our former auditors and cost-optimization specialists now apply the same discipline and rigor to AI spend.
Truly Independent
No vendor relationships. No reseller incentives. Every AI cost recommendation is 100% client-driven — we have no financial benefit from any platform or vendor outcome.
Deep AI & Licensing Expertise
Former software compliance auditors with hands-on experience across real AI billing models — OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft Copilot, Salesforce Agentforce, ServiceNow Now Assist, and more.
Proven Results
Clients consistently achieve 15–35% reduction in projected AI spend. Our assessments surface actionable findings within 45 days — before untracked AI costs become normalized.
130+ Engagements Delivered
Built on the same methodology that has powered 130+ successful software licensing engagements — now purpose-built for the unique economics of AI consumption models.
What You Get at the End of Every Engagement
A comprehensive set of findings, models, and governance assets — built to last beyond the engagement.
Products That Are Strong Candidates for This Service
LDS has deep expertise across every major AI billing model and vendor.
Common Questions About Our AICCO Service
Take Control of AI Spend Before It Becomes Your Largest Uncontrolled Cost Center
Contact LDS today to schedule your AICCO assessment. Independent. Expert. Vendor-Neutral.
Schedule Your AICCO Assessment
