Main Menu

For CIOs & IT Procurement Leaders

GenAI didn't just enter your stack. It rewrote your supplier relationships.
Every vendor in your supply base is repricing around AI — new consumption meters, bundled "assist" add-ons, and renewal leverage you didn't have last year. Most TCO models haven't caught up. Do you know what that's quietly doing to your spend?
Schedule Your Free 30-Minute GenAI Deal Review

20+ Years

in IT sourcing & procurement

$1B

In deals advised annually

100%

Independent – no
vendor ties

What actually changed

The AI Decision Isn't Just About Technology Anymore
GenAI is being woven into the products you already license and the partners who already deliver for you. That changes pricing, leverage, and risk (usually before procurement is in the room). Four questions worth answering before your next renewal:

Q1 / Pricing

Are you being metered in ways your old TCO model never anticipated?

Tokens, agents, "assists," and per-action fees don't behave like seats. Consumption pricing is designed to grow — that's the vendor's objective, not an accident. If you can't forecast it, you can't control it.

Q2 / Leverage

Has AI quietly shifted negotiating power back to your incumbents?

When the AI is embedded in the platform you can't easily leave, switching costs rise and discounts shrink. Renewal leverage you held 18 months ago may already be gone.

Q3 / Integration Risk

Do you understand the risk of GenAI integrating across your supply base?

Data flows, model access, IP and indemnity, agentic actions taken on your behalf — the exposure now spans every supplier the model touches. Most contracts were written before any of it existed.

Q4 / Governance

Is delivery changing faster than your governance can keep up?

SIs and MSPs are re-tooling around AI mid-engagement. If your terms assume yesterday's delivery model, you may be paying for value that's shifted and accepting risk you never priced.

Spotlight - Anthropic Claude

The Delayed Sticker Shock of Claude Enterprise

Many organizations are discovering a quiet case of buyer's remorse after adopting Claude Enterprise (and Team). Costs spin up fast and the pricing structure is built so that they keep climbing. That's the model working as designed. 

The good news: there are ways to make sure your deal doesn't get away from you and ways to correct it if it already has. It comes down to having the right negotiation strategy and knowing what actually belongs in your deal: discounting, protections, flexibility, and the commitment terms that keep a fast-growing tool from becoming a fast-growing liability.

We've been providing exactly that to organizations adopting Anthropic's Claude offerings — so you can keep the capability and lose the runaway cost.

Seats Expansion is the default. Pilot footprints quietly become enterprise-wide line items with little renegotiation of unit price.
Usage Consumption-based components scale with adoption — the more value teams find, the faster the meter runs.
Terms Standard paper is light on caps, price protection, and downgrade flexibility unless you negotiate them in.
Lock-in Workflows and context built around the model raise switching costs by the next renewal.

The Risk

Unmanaged consumption pricing only moves one way.

Without usage caps, price protection, and the right commitment terms, a fast-growing tool becomes a fast-growing liability.

The good news: it's correctable — before you sign, and even after. The right deal structure keeps spend predictable and leverage on your side.

ILLUSTRATIVE
Unmanaged Signature Renewal 2
Unmanaged spend With the right terms

The Deals on Every CIOs Desk

Three providers. Three very different commercial traps.
The enterprise offerings from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI each price and lock in differently. Knowing the pattern behind the paper is the difference between a deal that scales with value and one that scales out of control.
Anthropic

Claude Enterprise

incl. Claude Code & Cowork under one agreement
A platform seat fee plus usage billed at API rates — with no included token allowance on usage-based plans. The meter runs faster precisely as teams find more value.
  • Seats. Pilot footprints quietly become enterprise-wide line items with little renegotiation of unit price.
  • Usage. Consumption components scale with adoption; spend limits help, but only if you negotiate and configure them.
  • Terms. Standard paper is light on caps, price protection, and downgrade flexibility unless you write them in
Google Cloud

Gemini Enterprise

editions + Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI)
Positioned as the "front door" to Google AI, with tiered editions and an agent platform that meters consumption — frequently entangled with your Workspace and Cloud commitments.
  • Bundling. Pricing leverage often sits inside a broader Workspace / Cloud committed-spend relationship.
  • Editions. Capability and governance features gate behind edition upsell paths.
  • Agents. Runtime and agent consumption add a meter most TCO models don't yet track.
OpenAI

ChatGPT Enterprise

contracted seats + flexible / credit pricing
Custom, sales-led pricing that isn't published — layered with credit-based "flexible pricing" for advanced features and usage-based Codex seats that behave nothing like a flat per-user lin
  • Opacity. No public rate card means your only benchmark is comparable recent deals.
  • Overage. Credit pools and advanced-feature usage create exposure beyond the committed pla
  • Seat mix. Standard vs. Codex seat types complicate true cost-per-user and commitments

Provider structures shown are directional summaries of publicly described models
and recent negotiations, not a quote. Specifics change frequently — your review
confirms them against your own paper.

30 Minutes with Adam Mansfield

Complimentary Enterprise GenAI Deal Review
Receive a confidential, independent assessment of your proposed or existing enterprise GenAI agreement. You'll get a candid, market-grounded assessment of where it stands based on recent negotiations and what's achievable right now.
Picture of Adam Mansfield

Adam Mansfield

UpperEdge's Practice Leader

  • Pricing read. Is your discounting and unit pricing in line with comparable recent deals?
  • Terms check. Where you're exposed on caps, price protection, ramp, and exit flexibility.
  • Leverage map. What's realistically negotiable — and where your strongest points of leverage sit.
  • Next move. A directional recommendation — whether you're pre-signature or trying to correct a live deal.
Book Your Free 30-Min Directional Review

Resources

GenAI, vendors, and where you have negotiation room
Independent analysis for the buy side.

Before you sign, find out what your deal is missing

Get a directional read on your proposed or current Enterprise GenAI pricing, terms, and leverage. No obligation.

Book your free assessment