Calero adds AI consumption controls to SaaS platform

Calero has added AI consumption, cost and adoption management to its SaaS management platform, reflecting the spread of consumption-based pricing in business software.

The new functions are intended to help organisations track AI use outside formal procurement processes, monitor token- and quota-based spending, and assess whether AI subscriptions are being used. Calero is extending its existing technology expense management approach, which already covers telecom, mobility, SaaS and market data, to include AI services and tools.

Businesses are facing a shift in software purchasing as AI products move beyond conventional seat-based licensing. Instead of paying only for named users, companies are increasingly dealing with token-based charging, pooled usage, quotas and hybrid arrangements that can change from month to month.

That has made software oversight harder for IT, procurement and finance teams. AI tools can be adopted through free tiers, individual employee sign-ups or features embedded in software a company already licenses, leaving organisations with incomplete records of what is in use and how much it costs.

New controls

Calero's update introduces shadow AI discovery, hybrid licence management, adoption tracking, anomaly detection and integrations with selected AI providers. The additions are designed to expand SaaS management beyond periodic licence reviews and seat counts.

The shadow AI discovery function uses agentless connections to systems already operating in a customer environment to scan for applications in use. AI and AI-enabled tools are then classified by vendor, function and capability, giving customers a current inventory of approved and unapproved usage.

Another element is hybrid licence management, which brings together traditional subscriptions and consumption-based entitlements in one view. The system is designed to cover seat licences alongside pooled token usage and individual quotas, giving procurement and finance teams a fuller picture when renewal and true-up discussions begin.

Calero is also adding adoption tracking to link entitlement data with usage and consumption information. This is intended to show where organisations are paying for access that is rarely used, whether through unused seats or underused consumption plans.

Anomaly detection addresses one of the main concerns with AI billing: sudden jumps in usage that become clear only when an invoice arrives. Calero's policy engine now supports consumption-based events, allowing customers to set thresholds and trigger alerts when usage or spending exceeds internal expectations.

Provider links

The platform now includes pre-built integrations for Microsoft Copilot, Cursor and Anthropic Claude. These links collect consumption, entitlement and cost data from each provider in one place, with connector coverage expected to grow as more vendor application programming interfaces become available.

The development points to a wider overlap between FinOps and technology expense management. FinOps emerged largely around cloud infrastructure spending, but the same disciplines are being applied more broadly as software and communications services adopt variable charging models.

In practice, that means annual budgeting cycles and fixed per-seat assumptions are becoming less reliable for some categories of technology spend. Continuous monitoring is becoming more important where costs can shift rapidly with employee activity, model usage or changes in vendor pricing structures.

Calero says its broader platform gives customers a way to apply the same framework across AI, SaaS, telecom and mobility spending rather than add a separate tool for AI oversight. The company serves more than 3,000 enterprise customers across 102 countries.

Eric Martorano, President and CRO at Calero, framed the update as a response to the pace of AI adoption in large organisations.

"AI is entering the enterprise faster than any technology we have managed in 30 years, and it is arriving with a meter running," said Eric Martorano, President and CRO at Calero. "Organisations are being asked to scale AI and account for it at the same time. Our customers should not have to choose between moving aggressively on AI and knowing what it costs them. Calero has spent three decades making technology spend visible, measurable and manageable, and AI is now part of that same system. That is how the enterprise will run AI at scale."