The first sign of a problem is usually the invoice
AI spend moves fast, and the first sign of a problem is usually the invoice. A misattributed workload, a retry loop burning tokens, a guardrail scan costing more than the request it's protecting — none of that shows up until someone goes looking, and by then it's already cost real money.
- Spend spikes get noticed after the bill, not before
- Misattributed or misrouted spend hides in aggregate numbers
- Retry and failure waste rarely gets a dedicated line item
- Guardrail scans can quietly cost more than the requests they protect