USE CASE
AI Investment Planning
Forecast AI spend, govern new initiatives and measure ROI in one connected plan, so every AI investment can be scaled with confidence.
Trusted by
"Getting quotas and pipeline targets on day one of the year is a best-in-class motion – one that a lot of organizations don’t hit. I don’t know if I would be able to keep up with that without Pigment."
Michael Duncan
Director of Revenue Operations
“We need to do forecasts ten times a year and we weren’t really able to do that to the level of detail we wanted before. Now we can include all the information and still deliver a forecast on time.”
Marvin Persing
FP&A Team Lead
"The Modeler Agent is my thinking partner and my learning partner. I implemented a version dimension plan within an hour; a task that would have normally taken me one to two days of focused effort. It turned what used to be a 'whole project' into a quick update."
Pooja Agrawal
Sr. Finance Manager, Strategic FP&A
"What I see with Pigment is that the flexibility really allows you to model whatever you need to serve you best."
Adeeb Ali
Head of Finance, US & Global eCommerce
"The Modeler Agent has exceeded expectations. What used to take hours of designing, modeling and framework building can now be done in minutes. We can spin up ideas quickly, share them with stakeholders earlier, and iterate faster."
Jack Silvert
Strategic Finance, Business Systems and Operations
"You need a tool that is very flexible and easy to adapt and react to unforeseen circumstances, and for us now it’s very easy to open Pigment and build different scenarios."
Lauri Sulonen
FP&A Operations Lead
"What Pigment does so well is it can take drivers, apply assumptions, and give you a more calendarized forecast."
Robbie Phelps
Financial Systems Architect
Why choose Pigment for AI Investment Planning
Plan the full economics of AI
Centralize LLM consumption and AI-enabled SaaS spend across providers, budgets and forecasts into one connected model.
Govern every AI initiative
Give every use case a clear owner, budget and approval path across Business, Procurement, IT, Finance and leadership.
Invest based on value
Compare cost, expected ROI and risk by use case to decide which AI initiatives to scale, optimize or stop.
How it works
AI investment planning in Pigment, in a nutshell
01
Connect
Bring in LLM usage, AI-enabled SaaS spend, budgets, employee data and organizational hierarchies.
02
PLAN
Allocate spend by team and use case, compare actuals against budget, forecast future run-rate and model new rollout scenarios.
03
GOVERN
Route new AI initiatives through costing, IT validation, budget approval and final sign-off. Automatically flag unusual or unmanaged consumption.
04
Optimize
Connect AI costs to expected value, compare ROI across initiatives and redirect investment toward the use cases delivering the strongest return.
Forecast spend. Govern usage. Prove ROI.
Plan beyond historical spend
Unify LLM consumption and AI-enabled SaaS costs in one planning model. Understand current spend, forecast what comes next and test how adoption, pricing and model choices will affect future budgets.
Govern AI investment before it scales
Give every AI initiative a clear business owner, expected value, estimated cost and approval path. Detect unusual consumption early and investigate the teams, models or workflows behind it.
Scale the AI initiatives that create value
Connect AI spend to business outcomes. Compare initiatives side by side and direct funding toward what works.
BUILT FOR EVERY STAKEHOLDER
Align every team behind AI investment
Bring Finance, IT, FinOps, Procurement and business teams into one operating model, from initiative intake and approval to budget management and ROI review.
For Finance
Forecast AI spend with confidence
Model future costs based on usage, adoption, vendor mix and planned AI initiatives.
Control budget exposure
Compare actuals, budgets, and forecasts while allocating spend to the teams and use cases responsible for it.
Measure the return on AI
Connect AI costs to productivity gains, time saved and business outcomes to determine which investments deserve more funding.
For IT and AI Platform teams
Govern new AI use cases
Validate new initiatives before they scale and ensure every use case has clear ownership, approval, and budget.
Detect unusual consumption automatically
Flag spend spikes, budget burn, high-context usage, premium-model drift, and unmanaged AI spend.
Optimize AI usage
Understand which providers, models, teams, and workflows are driving cost and where changes could improve efficiency.
For FinOps and Procurement
Extend cost governance from cloud to AI
Bring AI models, agents, and AI-enabled SaaS into the same financial discipline applied to cloud infrastructure.
Control vendor economics
Track rate cards, committed spend, discounts, contract owners, renewal dates, and commercial terms.
Cost initiatives before approval
Estimate the cost of new AI use cases and support informed budget and vendor decisions before spend begins.
For Business Leaders
Submit and manage AI initiatives
Create new use cases, define expected value, and route them to the right stakeholders for review.
Track progress and ownership
See approval status, spend, budget consumption, and ROI across the initiatives owned by your team.
Prove business impact
Understand whether AI workflows are delivering the productivity or business outcomes they were designed to create.
Discover more use cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is AI Investment Planning?
AI Investment Planning is the process of forecasting AI spend, governing new initiatives, allocating ownership and measuring whether AI investments are creating enough value to scale.
It brings together cost, budget, usage, risk and ROI in one planning process.
Why do companies need AI Investment Planning?
AI spend is spreading across models, agents, coding tools, AI-enabled SaaS and business-led initiatives.
Without a connected planning process, companies struggle to forecast costs, identify ownership, control budget exposure and understand which investments are delivering value.
What types of AI spend should be included?
AI Investment Planning can include:
- Direct LLM token consumption
- Coding assistants and agents
- AI-enabled SaaS
- Vendor contracts and committed spend
- Internal AI projects and business use cases
The goal is to create a complete view of AI investment, not just model usage.
How is AI Investment Planning different from AI cost monitoring?
Cost monitoring shows what has already been spent.
AI Investment Planning helps teams decide what happens next: how spend will evolve, which initiatives should be approved, where risks are emerging, and which investments are worth scaling.
How can companies forecast AI spend?
Teams can forecast AI spend using historical consumption, adoption assumptions, model and vendor mix, planned rollouts, contract commitments and expected use case growth.
Scenario planning can then show how changes in adoption, pricing or model selection affect future costs.
How should companies measure AI ROI?
AI ROI should compare the full cost of an initiative against measurable value, such as:
- Hours saved
- Productivity improvements
- Manual work avoided
- Faster cycle times
- Revenue or margin impact
- Risk reduction
The right value metric will depend on the use case.
How can companies govern new AI initiatives?
New AI use cases should follow a structured process covering business ownership, estimated cost, technical validation, budget approval and executive sign-off.
This helps companies prevent unmanaged adoption while allowing high-value initiatives to move forward quickly.
How can companies identify unusual or unmanaged AI spend?
Automated anomaly rules can flag spend spikes, rapid budget burn, high-context consumption, premium-model drift, or costs that are not mapped to an approved use case.
Teams can then investigate the vendor, model, employee, team, or workflow behind the issue.
How does Pigment support AI Investment Planning?
Pigment connects AI spend, budgets, forecasts, approvals, anomaly detection and ROI by use case in one planning environment.
The Pigment AI Investment Planner is available for free to Pigment customers.
See Pigment in action
The fastest way to understand Pigment is to see it in action. Sign up today and explore how agentic AI can transform the way you plan.
From 8 days to 4 min
Update P&L actuals & financial forecasting
80%
Time cut on data aggregation
12 hours
Saved per month on executive reporting
6 days faster
For scenarios creation and analysis