Argos: your AI bill is the fastest growing line nobody can explain.
Cloud solved this a decade ago and called it FinOps. AI is harder: costs are per token, prices move monthly, one prompt edit doubles spend overnight, and a data science sandbox can route PHI to a model nobody approved. Argos sits at the gateway and answers three questions, continuously.
What is it costing?
Every call metered and attributed to a project, use case and outcome. Month end forecast updated hourly. Showback to cost centres in the format Finance already uses for cloud.
Is it what we approved?
Live usage compared to each project's approved model card and data classification. Wrong model, region, data class or volume raises a ticket with evidence. Hard policy violations are blocked outright.
Is it worth it?
Cost per approved determination, per closed care gap, per resolved call. Routing to the cheapest model that still passes evals, with quality parity proven before the switch.
One screen for Finance, platform and governance.
| Project | Spend / budget | Signal | Model policy | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prior auth assist · UM | $41.2k / $48k | 86% of budget | pinned · approved | on track |
| Clinical policy reader | $27.9k / $30k | +38% wk/wk | routed | review |
| Member service copilot | $63.4k / $60k | over by $3.4k | routed | routing fix |
| Spend categoriser | $8.1k / $20k | 41% of budget | routed | on track |
| Data science sandbox | $19.7k / $5k | PHI → unapproved endpoint | blocked | hard block #412 |
Illustrative data. Deploys inside your VPC behind your existing gateway; prompt content is never stored, metadata only.
Nine things Argos does from day one.
Token metering & attribution
Every call attributed to project, use case, team, model and outcome. Metadata only.
Budgets & burn alerts
Soft alerts before hard caps. Anomaly detection on burn rate as well as totals.
Usage deviation detection
Wrong model, region, data class or volume raises a ticket with evidence. Hard blocks on violations.
Model routing
Cheapest model that meets the quality bar, proven by evals. Regulated cases pin approved models.
Cost per outcome
Joins spend with outcome attribution so sponsors see cost per determination, not per token.
Showback & chargeback
Monthly allocation to cost centres in the format your FinOps team already uses.
Vendor price tracking
Provider price changes applied automatically; forecast impact visible the same day.
Drift linkage
Cost changes correlated with quality, so a cheaper route that degrades accuracy is caught.
Governance reporting
Spend, deviations, blocks and remediation time feed the quarterly board pack.
