Cisco report finds 55% of organizations cannot control AI costs
CSCO•A Cisco observability report found 55% of surveyed organizations cannot control AI costs, while 57% said telemetry costs exceeded the cost of monitored infrastructure.
1. AI cost monitoring
Cisco's Oct. 20, 2026, Splunk observability report found that AI agent deployment is outpacing monitoring capabilities. Among respondents, 60% said unexpected billing spikes caused more operational strain than high baseline costs, and 57% said telemetry costs exceeded the cost of monitored infrastructure.
2. Observability gaps
Although 87% prioritized AI monitoring, 56% could not measure AI workload metrics such as large language model response quality. Among organizations with advanced observability practices, 91% could accurately identify AI spending sources, compared with 69% of non-leaders.
