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Operating Model

Operating Model

Who owns which part of AI economics, and how the parts connect

AI value management is not a new central team. It connects the people who already own parts of the economic chain, from procurement and engineering to finance, product owners and leadership. What is new is the link from consumption to proven outcomes, and the line managers who now create AI demand directly.

In brief

  • Nobody owns all of it. Each role owns one part of the chain.
  • FinOps, TBM, ITFM and SPM already supply most of the machinery.
  • The missing piece is the link from AI use to a measured outcome.
  • Line managers now create AI spend without a purchase order.
Leadership and portfolio across the top. Three columns for production, consumption and value, each with its roles. Line managers sit across consumption and value. Security, legal, risk, HR, ITFM and TBM run across the bottom. A decision loop runs measure, evidence, compare, decide, learn.
Stages and core roles from the Tokenomics Foundation (RC2, CC BY 4.0). Line managers and the decision loop are this site's additions.
Leadership and portfolio across the top. Three columns for production, consumption and value, each with its roles. Line managers sit across consumption and value. Security, legal, risk, HR, ITFM and TBM run across the bottom. A decision loop runs measure, evidence, compare, decide, learn.

Stages and core roles from the Tokenomics Foundation (RC2, CC BY 4.0). Line managers and the decision loop are this site's additions.

Who owns what

Start here. Who answers for cost, consumption and value, and where demand is now created.

Start here

Who owns AI economics?

The federated model in full, with a proposed RACI for fourteen recurring decisions.

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Control point

When every manager can create AI spend

Budget envelopes, model tiers and autonomy limits for the people who now create demand.

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Money and control

Budgets, spend control and the portfolio decisions that follow from them.

Five rows. FinOps governs variable spend and answers what we are consuming and why. TBM supplies the cost model and answers what each AI service costs. ITFM supplies budget, forecast and variance. SPM runs the portfolio and decides which initiatives get the money. AI value management, marked as new, links consumption to proven outcomes.
Four disciplines already exist. The link from cost to outcome is the new part.
Five rows. FinOps governs variable spend and answers what we are consuming and why. TBM supplies the cost model and answers what each AI service costs. ITFM supplies budget, forecast and variance. SPM runs the portfolio and decides which initiatives get the money. AI value management, marked as new, links consumption to proven outcomes.

Four disciplines already exist. The link from cost to outcome is the new part.

Foundation

The FinOps lineage

What carries over unchanged, and the one thing FinOps was never built to supply.

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Budgeting

How to budget for AI

Driver-based forecasting and variance when unit prices fall and total spend rises.

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Portfolio

SPM and AI

The portfolio discipline that turns value data into investment decisions.

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Finance view

What CFOs should ask of AI ROI claims

The questions that test a business case: complete cost, realistic benefit, and proof standards defined before approval.

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People and buying

Adoption and procurement, where most programmes stall.

Adoption

The blockers are human

Why programmes stall on behaviour, not technology, and the 90-day start.

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Procurement

Per-seat pricing under pressure

How agentic AI rewrites SaaS pricing, procurement and build-versus-buy.

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Supporting disciplines

How TBM, ITFM and the site's maturity models adapt to AI economics.

Domain overview

TBM & AI

How service and portfolio management disciplines adapt to shared AI capability economics.

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Domain overview

ITFM & AI

How budgeting, planning, forecasting, allocation, and reporting disciplines adapt to AI.

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Signature framework

The Layers of AI Value Management

How usage transparency, output quality, workflow value, delivery alignment, and portfolio strategy fit together.

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Signature framework

AI Economics Maturity Model

A maturity model for judging whether the organisation is becoming more governable as AI scales.

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