Budgets

budgets are how you turn ai spend from a moving number into a measurable commitment instead of reacting to changes after they happen, budgets let you define what matters to your organization by setting expected spend over a specific period of time this page shows how actual ai usage tracks against those planned milestones, so you can intervene before limits are crossed, not after why it matters ai spend only becomes controllable when it is planned without budgets, every increase in usage turns into a surprise conversation after the bill arrives budget summary gives you a single place to understand how planned ai spend compares to reality it shows whether you are on track, where you are at risk, and which teams or applications need attention before budgets are exceeded this page exists to answer one core question are we still in control of our ai spend? how to use it use the budget summary page to monitor budget health across your organization and identify where action is required start with overall budget health at the top of the page, you see total budgeted spend compared to total actual spend across all active budgets this gives you an immediate sense of whether ai usage is broadly tracking to plan or diverging it is the fastest way to assess overall financial exposure without drilling into individual budgets identify budgets at risk the summary section highlights budgets that are already over their defined limits budgets with rapidly increasing spend trends these indicators help you focus attention where it matters most, without scanning long tables or individual budget configurations if there is not enough historical data to calculate a trend, the page shows that clearly instead of inferring change review unused and overspent capacity the page surfaces budgets with the most unused capacity budgets that are overspent or approaching their limits together, these views show both sides of the picture where spend needs to be constrained and where there may be room to reallocate or expand usage understand spend by business unit budget summary breaks down actual spend by business unit so you can see who is consuming ai budget across the organization business units are flexible and can represent teams, applications, projects, or cost centers this reinforces ownership and makes it clear where budget conversations should happen compare actual spend to plan you can select an individual budget to see how actual spend compares to the planned budget over time this view shows whether spend is ramping faster than expected if usage is front loaded or evenly distributed how close the budget is to its thresholds this is particularly useful for understanding burn rate, not just current totals monitor budget alerts below the summary views, you can see any budget alerts that have been triggered during the selected time period budgets can be configured with multiple thresholds, such as 60%, 80%, 100%, or higher alerts confirm that guardrails are working and provide context for follow up actions review all budgets in one place at the bottom of the page, the budget performance table lists all budgets matching the selected time range for each budget, you can see the business unit it applies to actual spend budgeted amount percent of budget used start and end dates this table is the operational control surface for managing budgets at scale what a budget represents a budget defines a named allocation of ai spend a specific time period one business unit responsible for the spend an optional scope, such as specific services or usage types one or more alert thresholds budgets can be as broad or as precise as needed, depending on how tightly you want to control ai usage when to use this page use budget summary when you want to understand overall ai budget health you need to identify which budgets are at risk you want to confirm alerts and guardrails are functioning you are preparing for budget reviews or internal reporting this page keeps ai spend predictable by making plan versus reality visible at all times