Where is your AI spend actually going?

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AI infrastructure spending is on pace to hit roughly $497 billion in 2026 (IDC). Most engineering leaders can tell you the total. Almost none can tell you which team it went to, which initiative it supported, or what it delivered.

Translating engineering activity into financial outcomes gets harder the farther you move from the work – and it’s a serious challenge to attribute AI spend to results. In fact, 47% of large organizations don’t even know for sure which AI tools their employees are using (Protiviti AI Pulse Survey, May 2026).

KPMG's Q2 2026 Global AI Pulse survey puts numbers on it: Only 7% of leaders report established ROI on their AI spend, and 42% say they have only partial visibility into AI spend. 

However, there’s a bright side. Leaders with strong cost visibility are five times more likely to report established ROI (15% versus 3%), according to the KPMG data. 

Tempo Workforce Intelligence brings a new level of visibility into the value of AI investments by answering: 

1. What is AI costing us, and what did it deliver?
2. Are we delivering work faster with our AI tools?
3. Which AI tools are we actually using, and by whom?

For CTOs and engineering leaders, the outcome is visibility into the work and initiatives AI spend was actually used to deliver, so you can confirm your organization’s spend is aligned with your strategic priorities.

For CFOs and finance leaders, the outcome is a single pane of glass view into AI spend tied back to the body of work it supported, giving you a defensible record for capitalization decisions instead of one stitched together after the fact from vendor bills and Git history.

Either way, the answer to "what did AI actually do for us" stops being an estimate and starts being something you can point to. No other tool on the market can show you the blend: Human effort paired with AI spend on the same Jira work item.

If you're trying to get this level of visibility for your own organization today, curious what that process looks like on your end.