The State of FinOps 2025: What IT Finance Leaders Need to Know
The latest State of FinOps 2025 report makes one thing clear—IT finance leaders are being asked to do more than ever before. Managing AI, SaaS, private cloud, and hybrid IT isn’t just about tracking costs anymore. It’s about governance, accountability, and making smarter investments across the board.
At Mavvrik, we help enterprises turn chaotic IT spending into predictable, optimized investments. Let’s break down the five biggest takeaways from this year’s FinOps report—and what you can do right now to stay ahead.
The highest changes in priorities are Managing AI/ML spend (+4 places), Managing costs beyond public cloud (+5 places), and Getting to unit economics (+5 places). Source: State of FinOps 2025 by FinOps Foundation.
Step 1: FinOps is Expanding Beyond Cloud—It’s Now “Cloud+”
Key Insight:
FinOps isn’t just about the public cloud anymore. Today’s teams are also managing SaaS, AI, private cloud, licensing, and even on-prem data centers. According to the report, 65% of FinOps teams now oversee SaaS costs, and many are expanding into broader IT finance management.
What to Do Now:
- Get full visibility across cloud, SaaS, AI, and on-prem IT investments.
- Understand your costs before jumping into optimization strategies.
- Break down silos between finance, IT, and engineering with shared cost insights.
How Mavvrik helps manage unified IT costs:
Mavvrik provides a unified control plane over your entire IT spend, giving you a single pane of glass for cloud, SaaS, AI, and beyond—so you can see the full picture and take action faster.
Step 2: AI Spending is Surging—But Cost Control is Lagging
Key Insight:
AI is exploding, and so are its costs. In just one year, the number of FinOps teams managing AI spend has doubled from 31% to 63%. The problem? Most companies don’t have the visibility or controls in place to track AI costs effectively.
What to Do Now:
- Drill down into AI spending—Discover AI spend, track costs by model, workload, and GPU usage.
- Set predictive cost alerts to catch budget overruns before they happen.
- Connect AI investments to real business value so costs don’t spiral out of control.
How Mavvrik helps manage AI and GPU costs:
Mavvrik helps you identify all AI spending, gives you real-time AI cost tracking and GPU monitoring so you can prevent cost surprises and ensure AI spending drives business outcomes.
Step 3: Cost Optimization Alone Isn’t Enough—Governance is Now the Top Priority
Key Insight:
For years, FinOps has been about cutting costs and optimizing workloads. But now, companies are shifting focus to governance, policy enforcement, and automated cost allocation. It’s not just about optimizing spend, it’s about optimizing cost management processes to accelerate cost governance maturity.
What to Do Now:
- Set cost guardrails to prevent waste before it happens.
- Automate chargebacks so every team is accountable for what they spend.
- Track unit economics to connect IT costs with revenue.
How Mavvrik helps with cost governance:
Mavvrik automates governance, chargebacks, and cost policies, forcing accountability over costs, giving IT leaders total control over IT spending—not just cost reduction.
State of FinOps by FinOps Foundation
Step 4: FinOps Teams Are Overloaded—Automation is Now Essential
Key Insight:
FinOps teams are stretched thin. More technology, fewer resources, and mounting pressure to control costs—without automation, burnout is inevitable. The teams that succeed will be the ones that invest in the right tools.
What to Do Now:
- Automate cost tracking to eliminate manual spreadsheets and simplify month-end close processes
- Use anomaly detection to catch unexpected spending spikes.
- Give your team the tools to efficiently manage hybrid IT spending.
How Mavvrik helps automating cost management:
Mavvrik automates cost tracking, anomaly detection, and reporting, so your FinOps team can focus on higher value strategic activities rather than updating spreadsheets.
Step 5: AI Cost Control Will Be the Next Big Focus
Key Insight:
Right now, companies are focused on launching AI initiatives — security, scale, hardware access. To date, cost has been a bit of an afterthought, but as AI adoption grows, so will the need for better efficiency, governance, and cost controls.
What to Do Now:
- Start planning an AI cost strategy today—don’t wait until budgets are out of control.
- Track AI efficiency metrics, like cost per inference and GPU utilization.
- Prepare for future AI governance needs as FinOps evolves.
How Mavvrik helps with AI and SaaS unit economics:
Mavvrik is the only solution that delivers end-to-end AI cost governance, from GPU and LLM Model Discovery, to detailed unit-level economics and cost-to-serve for any AI initiatives through AI cost insights, predictive alerts, and cost governance tools.
Final Thoughts: FinOps in 2025 is About Governance & AI Cost Control
FinOps isn’t just about cloud cost optimization anymore—it’s about managing all technology investments, including AI, SaaS, and hybrid IT infrastructure.
Key Takeaways for IT Finance Leaders:
- Get full visibility across cloud, SaaS, AI, and on-prem IT.
- Automate governance to keep costs under control at scale.
- Take charge of AI spending before it spirals out of control.
At Mavvrik, we help enterprises streamline IT spending, improve AI cost efficiency, and enforce governance so they can stay ahead. Ready to learn more? Get a demo today.
FAQ Section
What is Cloud+ FinOps?
Cloud+ FinOps extends beyond traditional cloud cost management to include SaaS, private cloud, AI, and hybrid IT finance management.
How can enterprises control AI costs?
Companies can control AI costs by tracking spending per model, setting predictive alerts, and tying investments to business value.
Why is IT cost governance important?
IT cost governance ensures accountability, prevents budget overruns, and helps IT investments align with business goals.
What are the key FinOps trends in 2025?
Key trends include AI cost management, governance automation, and FinOps expanding beyond cloud to include SaaS and hybrid IT.
What are the best tools for FinOps automation?
FinOps tools should provide cost visibility, automated governance, anomaly detection, and AI cost tracking.
