Cloud cost optimization has become a top priority in enterprise IT strategy
The cloud was supposed to make things simpler, faster scaling, flexible workloads, and lower costs. And in some ways, it did. But the assumption that migrating to the cloud automatically reduces expenses has turned out to be wrong for most enterprises. What we’re seeing now is a shift in mindset, from “move fast” to “spend smart.”
According to the 2025 Crayon IT Cost Optimization Report, 94% of IT leaders are struggling to control cloud expenses. That’s practically everyone. And 57% say it’s now their number one lever for getting the most out of their IT budgets. The problem isn’t the technology, it’s how we’re managing it. Overprovisioning resources, poor visibility into usage, and lack of cost governance are all pushing cloud bills higher than expected.
This matters to you because cloud spending has now become material enough to impact overall business performance. When costs are unpredictable, it’s hard to build reliable forecasts. That creates friction between finance and IT. Fixing this means getting serious about financial accountability within tech operations, something many are now calling “FinOps.” But it’s not just about adopting a new discipline. It’s about holding your teams accountable, from CTO to finance lead, to understand how infrastructure decisions affect your bottom line.
If you’re a C-level executive, don’t treat cloud optimization as a side project. Put someone in charge who owns both usage and cost outcomes. Build real-time visibility into where your money is going, and align spend with value. That’s how you turn cloud into a strategic asset instead of a sunk cost.
The increasing integration of artificial intelligence adds to the complexity and cost of cloud operations
Everyone’s trying to move fast with AI. It’s automating workflows, improving forecasting, and helping organizations make decisions that used to take days, now in seconds. But there’s a high price tag attached to all that innovation. The cost of running large AI models, particularly in the cloud, is rising fast. Many teams don’t fully understand what they’ve signed up for until the monthly cloud bill hits.
The Crayon Report highlights what’s coming: 40% of IT leaders expect that managing AI-related expenses will become their biggest financial challenge in the next three years. About 60% already use AI to automate IT processes, and another 45% are applying it to predictive cost analytics. That’s a lot of activity on workloads that demand massive amounts of computing power, especially when GPUs are involved. Cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have responded with specialized AI infrastructure, but, no surprise, it’s expensive.
If you’re in the boardroom thinking about where to invest next, understand this: AI is powerful, but it’s not cheap. Left unmanaged, it’ll eat into margins faster than you scaled up. You need to be proactive. Build AI cost into your strategy, not just your innovation roadmap. That means tracking consumption at the model level, choosing the right environments to train and serve those models, and avoiding the mistake of defaulting everything to public cloud.
This is where strategic cost control meets technological leadership. Keep AI lean, efficient, and aligned with business outcomes. That’s the only way to make it sustainable at scale.
The trend toward hybrid IT infrastructures
Public cloud services are still a strong option for handling scale, agility, and dynamic workloads. But the idea that every workload belongs in the cloud doesn’t hold up anymore. Enterprises are putting real money back into on-premises infrastructure, because in many cases, it just makes more financial and operational sense.
The latest Crayon data confirms this shift: 94% of IT leaders say they plan to invest in on-prem infrastructure, with roughly 37% of IT budgets redirected toward it. The reasons are clear. When you’re dealing with stable, predictable workloads, hosting them in the public cloud can result in overpayment for compute and storage that you don’t fully use. Internal infrastructure gives you tighter control over resource allocation and ongoing costs. It’s about making smarter decisions for where workloads run best.
Security and compliance are also major factors. According to the Crayon Report, 52% of respondents linked their hybrid strategy to stricter regulations and the need for better control over sensitive data. This goes well beyond technical policy, it’s about ensuring your infrastructure aligns with changing regulatory and legal requirements in industries like healthcare and finance. Additionally, 41% of IT leaders cited control over infrastructure as a growing priority, and that too is gaining relevance as digital operations become more complex.
What you should take away from this is that hybrid IT isn’t a sign of fragmentation, it’s a deliberate recalibration. Executives who want better cost oversight, stable operations, and tighter security controls should be pushing for workload-specific strategies, not blanket cloud migration. What matters now is flexibility of choice, deploying what works best where it works best, and enabling it through disciplined architecture and governance.
The emerging practice of FinOps is crucial for establishing financial accountability
Cloud spend is becoming one of the largest line items in IT budgets. And the moment spend hits a certain scale, it stops being a technology issue, it becomes a business one. That’s why FinOps is gaining ground. It brings financial discipline to cloud operations by tracking usage, identifying inefficiencies, and ensuring that cloud infrastructure supports business goals with clear accountability.
FinOps isn’t just a cost-cutting tool. It’s a framework for smarter decision-making. Organizations practicing FinOps can see exactly where their cloud resources are being used, by whom, and for what purpose. This type of visibility allows finance and tech teams to work together. That’s what’s required today, because cloud decisions are never purely technical anymore, they have direct budget implications. If your CIO and CFO aren’t aligned on this, it’s a problem.
The Crayon IT Cost Optimization Report reinforces the trend, enterprises are rapidly investing in FinOps teams and tools to rein in spending and forecast better. It’s no longer optional to have real-time cost data, usage metrics, and automated reporting baked into your operations. When usage goes up, and value doesn’t, FinOps ensures those problems are flagged early, before they spread across the business.
If you’re leading the company, don’t push this into a corner. Equip your teams with the data and the authority to optimize. Build FinOps into your governance model now. What you gain is not just savings, but the clarity to scale faster, smarter, and with control.
Strategic cloud optimization now demands a workload-specific approach
The days of full-scale cloud migration without a cost strategy are over. Companies are starting to realize that putting everything in the public cloud doesn’t always lead to financial efficiency, or even better performance. What matters now is placing each workload in the right environment based on cost, compliance, application needs, and expected performance. That means being deliberate.
According to the latest Crayon data, 41% of IT budgets are still going toward expanding cloud capabilities. But that investment only generates real value when every workload is evaluated strategically. Enterprises are now moving from “cloud-first” to “fit-for-purpose.” Public clouds are great for dynamic, highly scalable services. But not all systems need that kind of elasticity, and pushing stable or compliance-heavy workloads into that environment may end up increasing costs or risking control.
What this means for business leaders is simple: optimization must lead migration. That includes reducing redundancy across multicloud environments, implementing tools that track cross-platform usage in real time, and rethinking legacy assets that may perform more efficiently on-prem. These aren’t small tweaks, they require a shift in how infrastructure decisions are made. Without cross-functional visibility and accountability, it’s hard to reach meaningful cost savings or system agility.
You need a model that evaluates workloads first, aligns them to the right environment, and builds financial and operational performance directly into your architecture decisions. This approach doesn’t slow innovation, it supports it. When optimization becomes a standard part of your IT strategy, you don’t have to reverse course after bad decisions. You move forward knowing every deployment supports your bottom line.
If the goal is to stay resilient and scalable while maintaining financial discipline, this is the path. Build smarter by ensuring technical innovation is paired with cost precision from the beginning. That’s how you make your infrastructure support long-term strategy.
Key takeaways for leaders
- Prioritize cloud cost optimization: The majority of IT leaders face cloud overspending due to mismanagement and lack of visibility, 57% now see optimization as their top lever for increasing IT ROI. Leaders should instill financial accountability across tech operations to enforce smarter usage and cost discipline.
- Account for AI-driven cloud costs early: AI adoption is accelerating, but many enterprises underestimate its financial impact, 40% of IT leaders expect AI-related expenses to become their biggest budget challenge. Leaders should integrate AI cost planning into cloud strategies from the outset to avoid margin erosion.
- Invest strategically in hybrid IT models: 94% of IT leaders are shifting resources toward hybrid environments, allocating 37% of budgets to on-prem infrastructure for better cost control, compliance, and operational visibility. Decision-makers should evaluate workloads by stability, regulation, and cost efficiency to determine their optimal environment.
- Establish a FinOps culture for cost alignment: Rising cloud expenditures demand shared visibility and accountability between finance and IT. Executives should formalize FinOps practices to link budget control with cloud usage, enabling real-time decision-making and sustainable scaling.
- Optimize cloud deployments by workload: 41% of IT budgets are still flowing into cloud expansion, yet unrestricted cloud use can drive unnecessary spend. Leaders should apply a workload-first approach, placing applications where they offer the best performance-to-cost ratio, whether cloud or on-prem.
