Cost versus value: managing agentic AI system performance

By McKinsey & Company (Dan Tinkoff and Lieven Van der Veken, global leaders of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey).

This McKinsey Quarterly mailing features a piece titled "Cost versus value: Managing agentic AI system performance," which looks at how companies should measure what they actually pay for generative AI, and for agentic AI systems in particular.

The email's main point is that price per token is no longer a useful way to capture the real cost companies take on when they deploy generative AI. According to the teaser, the topic is covered in a conversation with David Tepper, CEO of Pay-i, who looks at the new measurement economics reportedly emerging to assess the spending and value of these systems.

The body of the email doesn't go into any more substance. It's a promotional message linking to the full article on McKinsey's website, so no further specifics (figures, examples or particular findings) are available without reading the original article.

The newsletter also has an "Also Consider" section with two related pieces: "Frontiers of compute: The technologies to reduce AI inference costs" and "Where AI will create value—and where it won't." They cover related topics: compute infrastructure for inference and where AI will create value.