FinOps for Data · Workload Analytics · AI Governance

FinOps stops at the invoice.
I start at the workload.

Agentic AI is generating code, and data, faster than any team can review it, now across millions of applications. Almost nobody is measuring what it costs to run. I help boards and executives see what their technology actually costs, before the hidden bill becomes existential.

Below the waterline The end of abundance Context engineering is the new FinOps From custodians to architects Not milliseconds, dollars Below the waterline The end of abundance Context engineering is the new FinOps From custodians to architects Not milliseconds, dollars
✦ Forbes Books Author
✦ Inc. 5000 · Twice
✦ Writes on Forbes.com
✦ Host · Tech(e)valuation
✦ Founder · Fortified

The cost of code is invisible. Agentic AI just made that existential.

Most FinOps programs optimize the cloud invoice. The real money lives one layer deeper, in the workloads. The queries. The data pipelines. The schemas. The processes that run all day, every day, for fifteen years after the architect has moved on.

Now AI is writing code at industrial scale, and autonomous agents are deploying it. The business is spinning up new applications and technical processes at roughly four to one against the technology teams meant to support them, and that rate of change is only accelerating. Technical debt is compounding faster than any FinOps dashboard can track. Organizations layering agentic AI on top of unresolved workload debt aren’t innovating. They’re compounding their liability.

40%

Of Agentic AI Projects Stall

A large share are projected to be scrapped before production, most of them launched on top of brittle, unmeasured workloads.

Source: Gartner projection - confirm citation
60-80%

Lives below the invoice

The portion of enterprise technology cost that sits in the workload, not the infrastructure line items every FinOps tool already shows you.
Fortified analysis
15yrs

A schema decision compounds

A single design choice in week three of a project stays on the books for the next fifteen years. Most architects never see that bill.

The 15-year application thesis
WATERLINE · WHAT YOU SEE TODAY THE INVOICE the workload QUERIES · DATA · SCHEMAS PIPELINES · CODE · AGENT OUTPUT 60–80% OF YOUR ENTERPRISE TECH SPEND UNOPTIMIZED TODAY
01 · Above the waterline

What you see.

The infrastructure bill. The cloud invoice. The line items every FinOps tool already shows you. The visible tip the industry has optimized for a decade.

02 · Below the waterline

What you don't.

The queries. The data. The schemas. The processes. The agent-generated code shipping at speed. The 15-year compounding cost decisions nobody sees.

03 · The opportunity

Where the money is.

A material share of enterprise database spend is recoverable. Not in the infrastructure, in the workload. The leaders who see it first set the playbook for the next decade.

The position

Not milliseconds, dollars. Not query plans, ROI.

Ben DeBow · From the keynote

Speaking

I don't give tech talks. I give CFOs and CIOs a shared language.

Three signature keynotes built for boardrooms, FinOps summits, and executive offsites where business and technology need to leave with the same vocabulary.

Signature Talks · 2026

The Efficiency Era

Context Engineering Is the New FinOps

What Your AI Projects Actually Cost

The Newsletter

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One sharp insight every other week on enterprise technology cost, AI governance, and what efficiency actually means in 2026. No filler.