AI costs do not wait for your renewal date, so your review should not either. Unlike traditional licences, which are bought once and renewed on a cycle, AI spend builds up through add-ons, consumption charges and tools bought by individual teams. It can grow in any month.
Here are five areas worth watching between renewals, with one practical check for each that you can repeat on a regular schedule.
1. AI add-on licences
Products such as Copilot are sold as add-ons per user. The risk is the gap between licences assigned and licences actively used. Microsoft said on 28 October that customers with more than 50,000 Copilot seats are up more than eightfold in a year, which shows how quickly seat counts can grow.
The regular check: compare assigned licences with active users each month, and reassign any licence that has been idle for a set period.
2. Pay-as-you-go AI services
Cloud platforms and software vendors increasingly charge for AI by consumption. Microsoft reported that the number of Copilot customers consuming credits through usage-based billing grew more than 75 percent in a quarter. Consumption charges move with behaviour, so they can drift well away from the plan.
The regular check: review consumption and spend against budget monthly, and set alerts for sudden rises.
3. AI features inside existing agreements
Some AI costs arrive inside contracts you already have. SAP separates Base AI, included with cloud subscriptions, from Premium AI, paid for in AI Units. Salesforce has said it will meter calls that registered AI agents make into its platform and charge for them in Flex Credits, although the rate had not been published when this was written.
The regular check: for each major vendor, list what has been added since the last renewal, how it is charged and what commitments are attached.
4. Tools bought by individual teams
Teams often buy AI tools without involving procurement. Zylo’s 2026 index found AI-native app spend up 108 percent year on year, and 393 percent in organisations with more than 10,000 employees, and noted that many of these apps enter through expenses. That makes them hard to see, and likely to overlap with tools you already have.
The regular check: review expense reports and card spend for AI tools each quarter, and look for duplicates.
5. New AI commitments
Multi-year commitments, prepaid credits and minimum volumes are increasingly common in AI deals. Check who is allowed to approve them, and where they are recorded. Credits often expire. Independent write-ups of SAP’s guidance say AI Units are bought annually and lapse after 12 months, and other vendors have their own rules.
The regular check: keep one register of every AI commitment, with its owner, amount, expiry date and current use.
Visibility is the common thread
All five depend on being able to see what is happening. IBM’s new Apptio AI Value and ROI tool, for instance, is designed to link AI spend, including token costs, to business outcomes. You do not need a specialist product to begin. A shared spreadsheet with the five areas above, an owner for each and a monthly review will take you a long way.
Keep one register
A single register is the most useful tool. For each AI cost, record the vendor, the product, how it is charged, the contract it sits under, the commitment, the expiry date, the owner and the latest usage figure. Review it monthly. When a renewal approaches, it tells you quickly what has accumulated and what is being used.
Update the register whenever a team asks to buy something or a vendor adds a feature. The aim is not to slow people down. It is to make sure that spending is visible when it starts, not when it appears on an invoice.
How to run a monthly review
A thirty-minute meeting is usually enough. Look at the five areas in order. Which add-on licences are idle? Which consumption lines moved by more than expected? What has been added to existing contracts? What new tools have appeared on expenses or cards? What new commitments have been signed, and by whom? Assign an action to each finding and check last month’s actions first.
Over time the review becomes quicker, because you are checking changes. It also builds a record of how your AI spend grows, which is valuable evidence at renewal.
Questions to put to your vendors
Ask each vendor how AI features are charged, whether the price can change during the term and how you will be told. Ask how unused credits are treated. Ask what reporting you will get on consumption, and how often. Ask whether any AI capability is being added to your product by default, and whether you can switch it off. These questions are easier to ask now than after a bill arrives.
Where to start this week
If you do nothing else, do two things. Ask each team lead which AI tools they currently pay for or use, and list the answers. Then ask finance for card and expense data for the last six months, filtered for AI-related suppliers. The two lists rarely match, and the difference is where your first findings will be.
Conclusion
AI spend grows through add-ons, consumption, features inside existing contracts, team purchases and new commitments. Each needs its own simple check, repeated on a schedule.
Set an owner for each area, review monthly and keep a single register. Then your renewals will confirm what you already know rather than reveal what you missed.
