“When comparing labor costs, organizations routinely leave that ongoing work off the AI side of the ledger,” Sharma added. In addition to these ongoing costs, there are hidden costs. “Data preparation, monitoring, cybersecurity, compliance, and integrating AI into existing workflows are some of the costs companies overlook initially,” according to Jacob Ferguson, President of Ferguson Industrial Company. At call centers, the higher the call volume, the greater their AI costs. “The metric shift I’d recommend is to stop comparing AI costs to equivalent headcount costs and start comparing the cost per successful outcome,” Sharma said.