Building Your 2027 AI Budget (w/ Justin D’Onofrio, Accordion)
Devin Mathews speaks with Justin D’Onofrio, Managing Director at Accordion, about how private equity-backed CFOs and FP&A teams should approach budgeting for artificial intelligence. They discuss why unmanaged experimental spend has created budget blowouts, how to shift from funding tools to funding business outcomes, and detail Accordion's 8-step framework for establishing AI financial governance.
- Uncontrolled experimentation has driven software budget blowouts across private equity portfolio companies, forcing finance teams to treat artificial intelligence as capital deployment rather than departmental overhead. Read →
- Variable token consumption breaks traditional enterprise IT budgeting because model queries do not follow predictable, fixed-seat SaaS contract pricing. Read →
- Private equity sponsors measure AI returns by tracking revenue per head over time rather than cutting existing payroll. Read →
- Private equity finance teams are running into budget overruns by approving generative AI software as isolated SaaS line items like Claude or Perplexity instead of funding specific workflow outcomes. Read →
- Devin Mathews reports that 83% of private equity portfolio companies run active AI pilots, yet under 20% tie those projects to measurable enterprise value. Read →