What is the total cost of ownership of AI?

It helps to think of it like owning a car. The sticker price is only the start. Maintenance is the people and hours needed to keep the tool working. Mileage is the usage cost, which grows with every person and task. Wear and tear is process drift when nobody documents how work used to be done. Tires are the integrations between tools. Toll roads are add-ons and pay-per-use charges that appear after signing. The route is the build or buy decision and which problem goes first.

Most of these costs are invisible at purchase and show up later in headcount and in the budgets that fund acquisition. Benchmark the process the tool touches before rollout, so you can show at renewal whether it returned more than it cost.