"Alphabet and Microsoft customers were in “‘buy AI now, figure it out if it works later’ mode”, said Forrester analyst Lee Sustar. The companies had similar “AI-everywhere strategies” that would also pressure rival Amazon to “ramp up AI services to defend its cloud market share leadership”.

FT 31st January, 2024

Figuring out if it works later is a dangerous tack. If the suppliers' costs are rising significantly then bet your bottom dollar that so will fees eventually. Many enterprises are being tempted with substantial subsidies to experiment but it is wise to have an eye on the production stage licensing fees once you are hooked.

To experiment or not to experiment? The answer must be yes but I would advise having unbiased partners that can take you through the processes to identify use cases that will lead to gaining competitive advantage, business growth, and profitable margins. 

These may be tight, narrow use cases or general enterprise-wide deployments. 

Taking the latter many organisations are licensing Microsoft 365 CoPilot at $30/user/month. Beware of the hidden cost. You will have to leverage MS OneDrive in all its different formats and that data management, if implemented poorly, could crash the IT infrastructure. 

So again, choose the right partners with proven expertise to help you thread a practical path through this experimentation period.