AI Strategy & Governance

AI Token Strategy & Cost Governance for the Enterprise

The discipline that tamed cloud costs, applied to AI. As generative AI and LLM usage scales across the organisation, Unnati brings FinOps-grade visibility, governance, and cost optimisation to your AI token spend — before it becomes unmanageable.

Is This For You?

Signs your AI spend needs a strategy

If any of the following sound familiar, it's time to bring the same rigour to AI that you already apply to cloud and software.

AI spend is rising — and hard to forecast

Monthly token and API costs across providers are climbing, and nobody can confidently predict next quarter's bill.

Multiple tools, no central visibility

Teams have adopted different AI tools and model providers independently, with no consolidated view of usage or cost.

No clear picture of who's using what

There's no reliable answer to who across the organisation has AI access, at what level, or for what purpose.

Pilots worked — the economics didn't scale

Proof-of-concept projects showed promise, but cost-per-outcome became untenable once usage moved into production.

The board is asking for AI ROI

Leadership wants a clear answer on AI return on investment, and nobody can provide one with confidence.

What You Get

Outcomes, not methodology

Every engagement is built around clear, board-ready deliverables — not frameworks for their own sake.

Spend Visibility

A clear, consolidated picture of current AI/LLM spend — by provider, by team, and by trend — so you know exactly where the money is going.

Access Strategy

A clear view of who across the organisation should have AI access, at what level, and why — aligned to role, risk, and value.

Governance Model

A governance model that makes AI spend visible, attributable, and controlled — without slowing teams down.

Optimisation Roadmap

A prioritised roadmap of cost-optimisation opportunities, each with estimated savings, sequenced for impact.

Operating Model

An operating model so this keeps working as usage scales — not a one-time exercise that goes stale in six months.

How We Work

Five phases. One outcome.

A structured engagement model — rigorous enough for enterprise governance, fast enough to keep pace with how quickly AI usage changes.

Phase 01
Discover

We map your current AI/LLM footprint — tools, providers, spend, and usage patterns — to establish a single source of truth.

Phase 02
Strategize

We define who should have access to what, at what level, and build the case for where AI investment should go next.

Phase 03
Govern

We put in place the visibility and controls that make AI spend attributable to teams and accountable to leadership.

Phase 04
Optimize

We identify and prioritise cost-reduction opportunities, sequenced by impact and ease of implementation.

Phase 05
Operate

We hand over an operating model — and the capability — so your organisation keeps managing this as usage grows.

Quick Check

Where does your AI spend stand?

Answer six quick questions for a directional read on your organisation's AI cost maturity. Takes about a minute — no email required.

Your directional result

Book an AI Spend Diagnostic
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is AI FinOps / token economics?

AI FinOps applies the same principles that brought visibility and accountability to cloud spend — tagging, attribution, forecasting, and optimisation — to generative AI and LLM usage. Token economics refers to understanding how usage (tokens consumed per request, per model, per use case) translates into cost, so spend can be forecast, attributed, and managed rather than discovered after the fact.

How do enterprises control AI/LLM costs?

Enterprises that successfully control AI/LLM costs typically start with visibility — a consolidated view of spend across every tool and provider in use — followed by access governance (who can use what, at what level) and ongoing optimisation as usage patterns evolve. Without this foundation, AI spend tends to grow in line with adoption with no corresponding cost discipline.

How much should we budget for AI token spend?

There is no universal figure — it depends on the number of use cases in production, the models in use, and how usage scales with adoption. What matters more than a fixed budget number is having a forecasting model tied to your actual usage drivers, so spend is predictable rather than a surprise on next month's invoice. An AI Spend Diagnostic establishes this baseline for your specific environment.

What is an AI token strategy?

An AI token strategy is a structured approach to how an organisation plans, allocates, governs, and optimises its spend on generative AI and LLM usage — covering which teams and use cases get access, how that access is governed, how spend is tracked and attributed, and how cost-optimisation opportunities are identified and prioritised over time.

How is this different from general AI consulting?

General AI consulting typically focuses on use cases, capability building, or model selection. AI Token Strategy is narrower and more operational — it focuses specifically on the cost, governance, and operating model side of AI adoption, in much the same way a FinOps engagement is distinct from a broader cloud strategy engagement.

Do we need this if we already use a cloud cost management tool?

Cloud cost management tools are typically built around infrastructure spend — compute, storage, networking — and often have limited visibility into API-based AI/LLM usage across multiple providers, or into how that usage maps to teams, use cases, and business value. AI Token Strategy complements existing cloud cost tooling by addressing the AI-specific layer that usually sits outside it.

What's the difference between this and a software license audit?

A software license audit looks backward — establishing whether you're compliant with existing licence terms for tools you already own. AI Token Strategy looks at consumption-based spend, which has no licence position to audit; instead it's about ongoing visibility, access governance, and optimisation of usage-based costs that change every month.

Who is this service for?

This service is designed for enterprise organisations — typically 1,000+ employees — where AI/LLM usage has moved beyond a single pilot and now spans multiple teams, tools, or providers, and where leadership needs a clear, governed view of cost and value. It is most relevant for CIOs, CTOs, CFOs, and Heads of AI or Data.

Get In Touch

Ready to bring FinOps discipline to your AI spend?

Start with an AI Spend Diagnostic — a focused first conversation about where your AI spend stands today, and where the opportunity is.

Book an AI Spend Diagnostic Explore Our Approach