A budget cap can stop a bill from crossing a threshold. However, it cannot tell a CIO which workloads should use premium models, which prompts are wasteful, when caching matters, whether long context is necessary, or which business unit is consuming AI because usage is easy rather than because it improves an operating result.
As AI coding tools and agentic workflows become embedded in software delivery, CIOs need to govern AI spend by business value, workflow impact, and platform dependency. Not by seats, prompts, requests, or tokens alone.