The Real Cost Of Enterprise AI

Interested in being a guest? Email us at [email protected] (https://www.buzzsprout.com/2228835/fa...) AI isn’t magic, and it definitely isn’t free. We sit down with Ken from Pega Systems to get brutally practical about the economics of enterprise AI: why token costs are a symptom, why infrastructure spend is so high, and how “murky ROI” happens when companies deploy AI for novelty instead of measurable business value. From Ken’s perspective as a former CFO and current COO, the best mental model is surprisingly simple: treat AI like a utility. If electricity has taught us anything, it’s that the winners don’t just consume more, they manage consumption better. We talk about how to reduce waste, how to avoid paying for frontier-model overkill, and why boards and finance teams are starting to demand tokenomics tied to outcomes. We also dig into a provocative corner of the market: incentives that can turn the AI ecosystem into a circular hype machine unless leaders insist on real examples and hard metrics. We then shift to what this means inside large organizations. Agentic AI can accelerate judgment-heavy work in finance, legal, HR, and marketing, while deterministic workflows still anchor reliability in core operations. Finally, Ken shares career advice for the next generation: as execution gets automated, the premium rises on strategy, product management, and validation skills, plus the curiosity to keep learning as roles evolve. If you care about enterprise AI ROI, workflow automation, and the real operating model behind digital transformation, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with the metric you think will prove AI is paying off. Support the show (https://www.buzzsprout.com/2228835/su...) More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel