Governance debt

Token counts and prompt volumes have become misleading proxies for productivity. Governance debt is the cost that accumulates at scale without corresponding oversight, and the anecdotes are already legendary.

Token consumption, prompt counts and chatbot interactions have become misleading proxies for genuine AI productivity. Organizations that celebrate high usage as healthy adoption are discovering that activity and value are not the same thing. What is emerging is the concept of "governance debt", which describes cost accumulating at scale without corresponding oversight.

Anecdotal evidence, such as the single Disney employee who interacted with Claude 460,000 times in nine days, or Uber employees exhausting the company's entire 2026 AI budget in just four months, shows clearly that governance debt is a valid concept.

AI is currently underpriced, because subsidized access is masking genuine infrastructure costs that vendors will eventually pass on. When pricing corrects, organizations without cost governance will face sudden exposure.