#cost

https://iowastartingline.com/news/labor/40-of-iowans-cant-afford-rent-and-bills-iowa-workers-almanac-layoffs-and-news-for-june-25-2026/

Companies poured billions into AI with sky-high expectations. It was supposed to be the ultimate productivity hack — slashing costs, supercharging innovation, and delivering effortless competitive advantage. Executives bet big that generative AI and automation would be the simple solution to margin pressure, talent shortages, and sluggish growth.

Now the reckoning is here.

Early pilots looked magical. Chatbots answered queries, code assistants sped up development, and analytics tools promised smarter decisions. But scaling those wins across the enterprise is proving far more expensive and complicated than the headlines suggested.

The costs are piling up: massive compute infrastructure, eye-watering energy consumption, specialized talent that commands premium salaries, constant model retraining, and the hidden expense of integrating brittle AI systems into legacy workflows. Many organizations are discovering that AI doesn’t magically replace headcount — it often requires more people to manage, monitor, and refine outputs. Hallucinations, bias issues, and compliance risks add further friction and potential liability.

The result? A growing number of leaders are quietly coming to terms with a harder truth: AI is a powerful tool, not a plug-and-play savior. ROI timelines are stretching. Some projects are being quietly deprioritized or rightsized. The hype cycle is colliding with balance-sheet reality.

That doesn’t mean AI is a bust. Far from it. The companies that will win are the ones treating it as a long-term capability build rather than a quick-fix expense. They’re focusing on narrow, high-value use cases, investing in data quality, building human-AI collaboration models, and being honest about both the upside and the total cost of ownership.

The era of “just add AI” is ending. The era of thoughtful, disciplined AI adoption is beginning.
What are you seeing in your organization — genuine transformation or mounting costs? Curious to hear real experiences.

#AI #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #TechAdoption

Cesar just announced the President Club. Roughly 150 people going to Four Seasons in Sydney. What's something like that gotta cost? How many FTEs could it have saved?

How are we paying for this??

The last Cost of Living Raise in stores happened in 2021 (part 1) and in 2022 (part 2).

The last Realignment happened in mid-2024.

The company seems to realign and give cost of living raises every few years since 2015.

Any chatter about the next ones?

Do year end reviews have any bearing on the upcoming layoffs ? Do direct managers have any input ?

Is it all cost related ?

Gas prices keep climbing, yet we’re still pretending there’s a business case for forcing people to drive to an office five days a week to do work that happens on a laptop.

Every increase at the pump is another pay cut for employees.

More money spent commuting, time wasted in traffic for the same work and same Teams calls that can happen anywhere in the world.

The cost of RTO keeps going up. The benefits remain impossible to find.

Well, the reality of its price and ROI. It's going to be so much fun to sit here and watch as the price tag balloons to ten times what it would have cost to keep the people who were laid of to be replaced by it. And then to watch them scramble to get the same quality of people back. I'm seated.

Many companies who totally dependent on AI are realizing the true value of employees. Dan is doing continues layoffs just like anything... AI is much much costlier.

Even though there no travel for everyone else , no money, LP and CB (costs extra on a plane) went to see that Investor that now has 6% stake in Prague yesterday. Wonder what they talk about? Why could not be done on teams?

We are told we are an AI first company.

Now we are being told not to use it too much as it's costing too much money!

https://www.axios.com/2026/05/28/ai-spending-roi-enterprise-costs

I don’t understand why we own ships and have such a large maritime presence/teams? Seems like a ripe area for ENGINE or simply rent ships from someone else. I can’t imagine we operate ships less expensive than the open market!

Cracks are starting to appear in the AI will save us so much money narrative.

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ai-cost-tokens-gemini-flash-openai-anthropic-gemini-search-2026-5

On Monday, June 1st, Copilot moves to token-based billing with major adjustments to token-cost multipliers. Some models will cost 60x more per token than others. Most of what users would call the "useful" models will become exceedingly expensive in comparison to the others.

Guess I’m finally going to start using AI as much as Sandeep has begged for.

Get ready to open your wallets, you d-mb fu--ing ghouls.

Tech Firms and Large Employers just now realizing cost of compute is higher than paying human workers.
Nvidia VP Bryan Catanzaro told Axios that for his team, compute costs now run far beyond what his employees cost. Uber's CTO burned through his entire 2026 AI budget on coding tools alone — and that was by April. (Axios)
OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger claimed that his team spent more than $1.3 million in token costs in just a single month. Because of this, it’s now apparent that using AI is more expensive than hiring people, especially since it offers only limited productivity gains at the moment.
Despite no clear evidence of AI improving productivity and no widespread data supporting the idea of AI displacing jobs, big tech firms have committed $740 billion in AI capital expenditures this year — a 69% jump from 2025. That spending has coincided with more than 92,000 tech layoffs in 2026 so far. (Fortune) So companies are simultaneously spending more on AI, laying people off, and discovering the math doesn't pencil out the way they projected.

All the price increases on consumer/first net plans! Yelp they gonna pay for Plano Golden Palace!

Simple Google search
Yes, AI can actually cost significantly more than human labor. A major reason for this is that running advanced AI requires massive amounts of expensive hardware and energy, making human workers the cheaper and more economically viable option for about (77\%) of roles.Why AI Can Cost More Than HumansSky-High Compute Fees: The processing power—measured in tokens—required for complex, multi-step "agentic" AI systems can outpace the costs of human salaries. Companies like Uber have reported blowing through their entire yearly AI budgets in just a few months due to heavy infrastructure usage.Expensive Hardware and Energy: Nvidia's vice president of applied deep learning has noted that for his team, AI compute costs far exceed the salaries of the employees utilizing the tools.Required Human Oversight: AI still makes frequent errors, forcing companies to pay human workers to monitor the models, review outputs, and fix breakdowns.The Economic RealityA landmark MIT study found that it is only economically viable to automate about (23\%) of jobs. In the remaining (77\%) of cases, employing a human is cheaper, more accurate, and more efficient than relying on artificial intelligence.While research firm Gartner projects that the unit cost of running large language models will drop substantially by 2030, overall enterprise costs will likely remain high. This is because businesses are utilizing much more complex models that require significantly more processing power per task.You can read more about the challenges of AI replacing human labor in this MIT Study or learn about enterprise budget shifts on Forbes.

Nvidia executive: The cost of AI tools is ‘far beyond’ the cost of human workers | Fortune https://share.google/6dSQd3XuczlH5KXs1

I have been trying to record my family’s expenses and with everything included from mortgage to groceries to kids classes and education savings, car insurance to home insurance, it costs around $8K-9K to run a home which keeps my single salary savings to $500 per month. Do you guys see the same too or more? What are your ways to make sure you save more on a single salary?

If you factor in actual inflation, rather than the numbers the government reports, wages are falling rapidly.

And both political parties share the blame. We have an uniparty anyway.

Have you looked at the price of a new car lately? Or a refrigerator? Or even steak?

Executive incompetence (or incontinence) is truly the root cause of all of this.

Gross mismanagement of spiking costs for flash ki-led margins, awful roll out of UCPQ, project ocean was a disaster that is still the gift that keeps on giving having to pay a 3rd party to fix it.

Stop believing that working harder will keep you safe. The employee who shows up, does the minimum, and spends the rest of the day working the room has better job security than the top performer on the team. When layoffs come, they look at your salary first and your results second. The company does not care how good you are. It cares how much you cost.

How much is the company paying for using codex and other AI tools? If the bill is high, it will impact the margin. A large layoffs can not be avoided.

Anyone wonder if they are willing to provide gas assistance for flex staff, and or reduce work in the office to two days a week during this economy to help cost of living at this time?

"Leahy said the multi-year cost management and efficiency ‘Geared For Growth’ initiative has paved the way for the AI-first focus of the plan going forward."

Okay, spill the beans...what is this, did they roll out CoPilot?

With gas prices rising at an astronomical rate, I've heard rumors that T is considering lowering the in-office average for the summer months to 2 days a week. Obviously this would be amazing for all of the employees who are suffering with increased cost of living across the board. Is there any truth to this?

Cost of living is skyrocketing, why can’t HR see this?

Does anyone know exactly how many people Ford employs in India now? From what I see, they easily outnumber our domestic groups, and I've heard numbers as high as 15,000 in Chennai?

They have become significantly harder to deal with lately. What was once a helpful partnership has devolved into constant demands and requests; I remember when both the ratio and the dynamic were the exact opposite. With Ford now pouring over cash into India to restart engine manufacturing, is anyone else concerned about where this trend is heading? It feels like we are trading our core expertise for a growing army of incompetence. Has anyone else noticed this shift?

School boards across Whatcom and Skagit County have approved reductions in force. These actions address enrollment declines, increasing costs, and state funding gaps. Districts must issue layoff notices to certificated staff by May 15. However, some affected staff may be rehired based on clearer financial pictures. Bellingham School Board approved reducing 38.2 certificated staff positions. Mount Vernon School Board approved reducing 13 certificated secondary, seven certificated elementary, one administrator, and 15 classified staff positions.

Whatcom and Skagit County, Washington

https://www.cascadiadaily.com/2026/apr/30/many-school-boards-are-approving-potential-reductions-in-force-a-roundup/

$150 per month to outsource Truist BO

If you care at all lift the hybrid requirement right now. No one can afford gas. And the further the war goes on the more expensive it’s getting. Your people are struggling.

If Ford truly cared about us, they would either up our pay, or let us WFH an additional day each week, to compensate us for the price of gas used coming into the office.

Article... AI can cost more than human workers now _
https://www.axios.com/2026/04/26/ai-cost-human-workers

Senior Leader claims AI innovation and DMM costs to be blamed for LR.
Thoughts? Are others hearing these claims?

I have seen just about every location in North America on one list or another here saying it s a "high cost" market. They can't all be high cost. I guess what i really want to know is what cities/states are considered "low cost" if any exist.

The pay increases lately don’t match how expensive everything else has become. Not that anybody at the top gives a damn, as long as their bonuses keep getting larger.

HOUSING
Property taxes in Houston remain a double-edged sword: while they fund essential local services in the absence of a state income tax, they are among the highest in the nation.

Surging property values are leading to higher overall tax bills.

Due to rising home prices and interest rates. Monthly mortgage payments have climbing 44% since 2021 not including increases in taxes and insurance. Few have received raises of a similar magnitude.

Beyond the purchase price, rising insurance premiums and climate-related costs (like flooding and extreme heat) are making homeownership increasingly expensive.

TRAFFIC
Houston traffic is increasingly viewed as unlivable, with commuters losing nearly four days annually to delays, a number that rose in 2026. It ranks among the worst in Texas, characterized by severe bottlenecks on I-45 and Loop 610, aggressive driving, and rapid sprawl, making it one of the least livable major US metros.

What you see in news is vastly exaggerated. Cost reduction target is 20% - achieved through head count reduction in high cost countries -us employees took the brunt.

What is this nonsensical RTO mandate going to cost you? Is RTO really all about foot traffic to justify the real estate investment? Are we secretly being used as pawns but told its for culture and collaboration but at the same time becoming a huge monetary and time burden while being reinforced its for the collaboration and growth of employees while at the same time helping the company justify its use of a building just for tax benefits? Like for real I'm facing an added $2500-$3000 in expenses every month as a result of this RTO mandate. The office I've been assigned to is over an hour away without traffic. So in a perfect world I am losing at least 10 hours per week in commute times. I actually expect this number to be about 22 hours/week based on our traffic. This is not work life balance. But hey at least that 1.5% raise I was GIVEN should cover the costs. I felt I should have EARNED more after exceeding all expectations again but I guess you get what they give you since performance and attendance mean nothing apparently. Would've been cool to get a 30% compensation boost like CEO.

Also I must point out there has been zero follow-up to Bill's email from mid January. The latest ethics and culture survey asks nothing about RTO.

I am the only one from my team in this state. What can I do in the office that cannot be done from a remote location? Besides playing workspace roulette when trying to find a quiet area to handle 5-7 hours of calls per day. I've tried to look at this from different angles but I can't get past this idea that the property valuations have been blamed on us and because of that we are being required to RTO 5 days/week to justify the use of a building. They do not care about the time, money, and tax burden this is causing thousands of employees because when you're worth tens of millions these burdens don't influence you or your decisions.

People leaving adds more pressure on the people who stay. Vacant positions aren't being fulfilled as quickly because of this RTO decision. Talent goes out the door. We have to work more hours. We have to spend more time and money. We have to train and onboard new people and hope they don't abandon ship or get pulled to a different team. This is a lose-lose scenario for tens of thousands of us.