Zylo is an saas expense management platform, which gives them a fair amount of data and insight into B2B spend. Each year they do a SaaS Management Index report, the latest one is out. It’s built on real data—$75B+ in SaaS spend, 40M+ licenses under management—not surveys asking people what they think they spend.
This year’s report is the most useful one yet. Not because the numbers changed dramatically, but because of why they changed in the Age of AI.
Here’s what matters:
1. SaaS Spend Is Up 8% to $11,530 Per Employee. While App Counts Are Flat
The average organization using Zyklo now spends $55.7M annually on SaaS. But here’s the thing—portfolio sizes barely moved (305 apps on average, down 0.1%).
So where’s the money going?
AI features. Consumption pricing. Vendor price increases. Not to net new apps.
The pressure isn’t coming from sprawl anymore. It’s coming from your existing vendors charging more for what you already have—plus new AI tiers you didn’t budget for.
2. 78% of IT Leaders Got Hit With Unexpected AI or Consumption Charges
Read that again. Nearly 4 in 5 IT leaders experienced surprise bills tied to AI features or usage-based pricing in the past year.
And 61% had to cut projects because of it.
This is the new reality of SaaS economics. You sign a contract, and somewhere mid-term, your vendor adds an AI feature with consumption pricing you didn’t anticipate. Or usage spikes trigger overage charges nobody saw coming.
Budgeting just got a lot harder.
3. ChatGPT Is Now the #1 Most Expensed Application
Shadow AI is real, and it’s showing up on corporate credit cards.
Expense-based SaaS purchasing grew 267% year-over-year. ChatGPT tops the list of expensed apps, with OpenAI API at #5. Eight of the top 50 most expensed applications are AI-native.
Your employees are adopting AI tools faster than your governance can keep up. The question isn’t whether to allow it—it’s how to get visibility into what’s already happening.
4. AI-Native Spend More Than Doubled (Up 108%)
Spending on AI-native applications—tools where AI is core to the product, like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity—rose 108% year over year.
Large enterprises (10,000+ employees) saw 393% growth in AI-native spend.
The Artificial Intelligence category posted the fastest growth in Zylo’s entire dataset at 181%. Application Development was second at 81%.
This isn’t early adoption anymore. This is enterprise AI hitting the main budget line.
5. Business Units Now Control 81% of SaaS Spend
IT’s share of SaaS spend has dropped to just 15%—the lowest ever recorded.
Business units own 81% of spend and over half of all applications. Individual employees introduce about one-third of apps.
The days of IT controlling the software stack are over. The new challenge is governance without gatekeeping—giving teams the tools they need while maintaining visibility into what’s actually in use.
6. License Waste Is Still $19.8M Per Company. So Expect Even More Pressure on Renewals
Despite a 13% improvement in utilization rates (from 47% to 54%), the average organization still carries $19.8M in license waste.
Unused licenses remain one of the largest and most recoverable sources of SaaS cost.
The only moment to fix this is renewal. You can’t change a contract mid-term. Which means every renewal that passes without a license audit locks in another year of waste.
7. GenAI Is Now a Top Redundant App Category
For eight years, Zylo has tracked redundant applications—multiple tools doing the same job. The usual suspects are project management (10 apps average), team collaboration (10), and online training (14).
Now Generative AI joins the list at 7 redundant apps per company.
Teams are experimenting with different AI tools without visibility into what others are using. Low switching costs make this worse—it’s easy to try another option when you’re not locked into anything.
Renewals are the moment to consolidate and standardize.
8. Multi-Year Contracts Are Back (Up 68%)—But Don’t Save Much Money
Multi-year contracts grew from 23% to 38% of agreements—a 68% increase.
But here’s what’s interesting: the savings advantage is basically gone.
- 12-month contracts: 16% average savings
- 24-month contracts: 14% average savings
- 36-month contracts: 13% average savings
Organizations aren’t signing multi-year deals for discounts. They’re doing it for predictability. When AI features and usage-based pricing create constant variability, locking in base terms starts to look attractive even without a discount.
9. 60% of IT Leaders Lack Visibility Into All GenAI Tools in Use
And 77% discovered AI-powered features or applications operating without IT’s awareness.
This isn’t just a cost problem—it’s a security problem. 43% of IT leaders cite exposure of sensitive data as their top AI concern. 93% express some level of concern about AI-related risk.
The challenge isn’t AI visibility specifically. It’s SaaS visibility generally. When AI capabilities are embedded across apps, you can’t manage AI risk without managing SaaS risk.
10. Renewals Are Still the Only Moment to Actually Reduce Spend
The average company manages 211 renewals per year—nearly one per business day.
Renewals account for 87% of total SaaS spend. New purchases are just 13%.
Yet only 38% of IT leaders consider renewals a key opportunity to reduce costs.
This disconnect is where money gets lost. Outside of consumption-based pricing, renewals are the only time you can rightsize licenses, renegotiate terms, eliminate redundant tools, or walk away entirely.
Miss that window and you’re locked in for another year.
What This Means for Founders
If you’re building a B2B company, understand that your buyers are dealing with:
- Unexpected charges from AI features and consumption pricing
- Continuing pressure to consolidate redundant tools
- Intense scrutiny at renewal (the only moment they can reduce spend)
- Shadow AI adoption they can’t fully track
AI Budget is way, way up — +108%. But … app count is flat. That means the hot AI Native vendors are winning, and as a cohort, everyone else is losing.
Which camp are you in?
