When cars replaced horses, the best mechanics tried to apply horse-and-buggy pricing to internal combustion engines. They all failed. FinOps tools are making the same mistake with AI spend.
A railroad executive in the 1860s got the first telegraph bill with no chart of accounts to put it in. Your first AI invoice landed exactly the same way. Here’s how to read it.
In 1914, a DuPont accountant invented the formula that became the foundation of modern business finance. Your AI budget is still waiting for someone to do the same thing to it.
In 1983, employees started buying Lotus 1-2-3 on their own credit cards. IT had no idea. Meet shadow AI — same story, bigger budget.
The stopwatch changed manufacturing. Knowing who is spending on AI — and what they're getting for it — changes how organizations scale intelligence.