Build the cost model
Resources
Add the people allocated to this work. Use a fully loaded hourly cost that reflects your own organization.
Licenses, compute and platform spend for this initiative, annualized.
External build, integration or advisory spend for this initiative, annualized.
Start with one known initiative, then scale the same cost profile across similar work if useful.
Set this to your own experience. At a portfolio count of one, read it as the probability that this initiative fails to reach production.
Reaches production but falls short of the business case.
Overlapping licenses or platforms bought independently by different teams.
An ilene.ai planning assumption for the portion of spend at risk that could potentially be redirected toward viable work. Replace it with your own assumption.
Next 12 months, estimated
Estimated annual value potentially recoverable
$54K
Directional range: $38K – $70K
Planning estimate only. Results depend on your assumptions and are not a guarantee of savings, recovery or business outcomes.
What would the investment need to return?
Use an investment amount and a conservative share of the recoverable value above to create a directional year-one ROI case. No service price is assumed here.
A planning assumption for the value a first step could unlock — not a claim that one engagement captures the full opportunity.
Year-one value unlocked
$11K
modeled
Payback period
5.6 mo
modeled, not guaranteed
Net year-one value
$6K
value unlocked less investment
Return multiple
2.2x
modeled
How the calculation works
Initiative COGS. Labor is the sum of each resource's annual hours × hourly cost. Total COGS for one initiative = labor + tooling/platform spend + vendor/consulting spend. Total annual AI spend = initiative COGS × the number of similar initiatives modeled.
Spend at risk. The model adds three categories: spend on initiatives that never reach production, spend on launched initiatives that underdeliver, and duplicated tooling spend. At a portfolio count of one, the stall-rate input should be read as this initiative's probability of not reaching production rather than a literal fraction of one project.
Recoverable value. Estimated recoverable value = total spend at risk × your recovery assumption. A ±30% directional range is shown because every input is an estimate. The recovery percentage is an ilene.ai planning assumption, not a third-party benchmark.
ROI. Year-one value unlocked = estimated recoverable value × the unlock assumption. Payback divides the investment by the modeled monthly value unlocked. Net year-one value subtracts the investment from modeled value unlocked. Return multiple = year-one value unlocked ÷ investment.
What is not included. This model does not quantify shadow AI, compliance exposure, opportunity cost, revenue upside, inflation or growth in future initiative count. It is intended to support a planning conversation, not replace a financial model built from your own operating data.
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