McKinsey & Company alerts businesses that AI expenditures could climb further as the use of autonomous agents spreads.
Unlike simple text‑based AI, agents tend to be far pricier to operate because they perform actual work. These tasks usually involve multiple steps, meaning there are many ways to reach the same outcome, leading to a broad cost range. A McKinsey study found that the expense of running various agents can vary by up to thirty‑fold.
Lari Hämäläinen, a senior partner at McKinsey, illustrated the point by saying, “Picture running an operation where the daily cost can swing by a factor of thirty.”
According to the firm’s 2026 State of AI survey, roughly one‑third of companies allocate over ten percent of their tech and communications budgets to AI. Sixty percent of respondents said they intend to boost AI spending next year, while about twenty percent reported that AI costs are starting to limit their overall operating expenses.
Tanguy Catlin, a senior partner at McKinsey and director of the McKinsey Global Institute, noted on Tuesday that AI spending has become a substantial and conspicuous line item.
The challenge is especially pronounced for software development teams that employ agents to automate coding, a process McKinsey describes as “extremely token‑intensive.”
The alert follows a year in which many firms urged employees to adopt more AI. Amazon discontinued an internal leaderboard that tracked AI token usage after employees started gaming the system to climb the ranks. Other companies, such as Coinbase and Salesforce, have started imposing caps on AI consumption as expenses mount.
In a recent report, McKinsey indicated that agentic AI can reduce the human effort required for certain transformation‑office tasks by 35% to 40%, and in some cases by 70% or higher. Nevertheless, the firm stresses that organizations must assess whether the agents deliver sufficient value to warrant their expense.
Hämäläinen added, “Much of this is still being learned, but it will become highly pertinent over the coming year.”