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Flexera has expanded its AI Cost Management platform to cover AI cloud infrastructure and AI data platforms, extending its cost controls beyond AI applications, agents, models and workflows.
The update also broadens its partner ecosystem to include AI gateways, observability tools, routing technologies and economic control systems. Flexera has also introduced an AI cost management maturity assessment for organisations seeking to benchmark their position.
The announcement comes as spending on artificial intelligence continues to rise and businesses face pressure to show returns while keeping tighter control of budgets. Flexera's data shows only 31% of organisations have visibility into their AI software, highlighting a gap between AI adoption and financial oversight.
New features include cost controls for AI cloud infrastructure and AI data cloud platforms. Snowflake's autonomous optimisation is due later this year, with Databricks support set to follow in early 2027.
These additions sit alongside the company's existing Token Cost Control product, which tracks AI spending across model APIs and software applications and identifies the users and agents behind that usage. The broader platform is designed to connect AI spending across different parts of the stack so businesses can allocate costs more clearly.
Recent debate in the UK has underlined the scale of AI investment and the practical constraints around it. SAP's Value of AI in the UK report found average annual AI spending among UK businesses has reached GBP £20.6 million, up 27% from the previous year, while 49% of respondents said AI agents are being deployed faster than they can be standardised and governed.
Infrastructure concerns have also come into focus. Microsoft has reportedly withdrawn from Nscale's GBP £2 billion data centre project in Loughton, drawing attention to wider questions around AI infrastructure, availability and cost.
Cost pressure
Flexera said the main challenge for finance and technology teams is understanding the full cost of AI usage as requests move across models, data platforms and computing resources. In practice, the cost of a single prompt can extend well beyond one model call as systems reason, retry and draw on additional data sources.
Its expanded tooling is intended to give organisations more direct oversight of those patterns in dynamic environments spanning cloud services, containers and data platforms. Flexera is also building integrations with external providers as enterprises seek better controls over routing and model selection.
"AI is one of the fastest-growing areas of technology spend, with worldwide investment forecast estimated to rise 47% this year. Scaling AI responsibly will require far greater visibility, accountability, and financial discipline," said Mike Jerich, Chief Executive Officer of Flexera.
"Flexera helps organisations understand, govern and optimise spending across the full AI stack, from model consumption and AI-powered applications to the infrastructure and data platforms that power AI at scale, connecting growing costs to measurable business value," Jerich said.
Market demand
Flexera also pointed to broader market demand for tools that tie AI usage more closely to cost and outcomes. It cited growing use of routers and gateways as enterprises try to manage increasingly fragmented AI estates, with 86% already evaluating or using a router, according to research referenced by the company.
Companies in the broader ecosystem include Revenium and Ascerta, formerly Pay-i. Flexera is expanding support for both open-source and commercial AI infrastructure through those collaborations and its own product development.
External voices included in the announcement said businesses are moving from experimentation to operational management of AI, bringing financial governance into sharper focus. That shift mirrors earlier enterprise efforts to apply spending discipline to cloud and software estates.
"Organisations are moving beyond AI experimentation into the realities of operating AI at scale. Through SoftwareOne's work helping enterprises optimise technology investments and navigate digital transformation, we're seeing growing demand for greater visibility into AI usage, costs, and business value. Flexera's focus on AI cost management reflects an important shift in the market as organisations look to apply the same financial discipline to AI investments that they've established for cloud and software," Trent Allgood, Vice President of ITAM & FinOps Consulting at SoftwareOne, said.
"AI is now past its experimental phase, and organizations are facing the challenges of managing it at scale. Many enterprises still lack a clear understanding of the cost structure of their AI initiatives, what is causing their budget overruns, and how to contain costs without stifling innovation. Solutions that improve spending visibility and correlate it with business value are in high demand, as organizations seek stricter financial discipline to guide their AI investment decisions," said Alessandro Perilli, IDC Vice President of AI Economics Research.