Consulting multinational EY is hiring a head of “agent economics” to oversee a new AI value realisation office, as companies shift focus from maximising AI use to managing spiralling costs. The unit aims to give EY greater visibility into the “material and tangible impact” of its AI investments, said EY global consulting AI leader Dan Diasio, and to ensure consistency in AI deployment across divisions. EY global vice chair for consulting Errol Gardner said AI management needs oversight spanning finance, technology and HR. The new head will report to global managing partner for business enablement Anthony Caterino. EY is also promoting its own AI adoption processes as client models: in April it set token caps in heavy-use areas such as software development, and last month said it developed an “AI router” that automatically sends tasks to the most appropriate model, reserving expensive models for difficult tasks. AI token costs have plummeted, yet usage costs have surged as companies adopt agents capable of complex tasks with minimal supervision, whose token usage cannot be reliably predicted. Only 64 percent of companies have processes to actively monitor token usage, according to an EY survey of 534 senior US business leaders.