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AI Economics Hub

Glossary entry · Value

Reported vs Booked Value

Two statuses for an AI value claim, from the Tokenomics Foundation's draft AI value data layer (November 2026). Reported value is notional capacity, such as hours returned to a team. Booked value is a hard impact that the finance team has verified on a profit and loss line, such as a reduced cost or a revenue increase.

Why it matters

Most AI value claims are reported, not booked. Marking every claim with its status stops capacity estimates being added to cash savings in one total, and tells a CFO which part of a claimed return will show up in the accounts.

The statuses come from the Tokenomics Foundation's draft AI value data layer proposal (Shawn Alpay, 5 November 2026, CC BY 4.0), where each record in the proposed value dataset is marked reported or booked. The proposal is a draft, not an adopted standard.

This site adopts the distinction as the status of a value claim. It is sharper than "claimed versus realised" because it names what a reported claim usually is: capacity, not cash. It fits the last step of the Foundation's own Observe, Net, Convert, Book chain, where a claim is booked only once a budget, a cost line or a revenue line has changed.

A reported claim still matters. Released capacity that is redeployed to valuable work is real value, but until it changes a line in the accounts it should be presented as capacity, not as a saving.

Where this term comes up