The New Boardroom Challenge? How To Govern AI Spend

Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

Across industries, companies are pouring money into AI tools, and employees are embracing them. According to a 2026 report from Atlassian, 85% of knowledge workers now use AI, yet only 29% say it has fundamentally changed how they work.

For business leaders, that gap raises a much bigger question: Where is all that investment going? And is it actually driving meaningful business outcomes?

Right now, many companies don’t know, says Asha Thurthi, Atlassian’s senior vice president of product for Strategy Collection, the company’s solution for AI-native strategic portfolio management. AI (and the compute behind it) have quickly become a major category of enterprise investment, yet many organizations still lack visibility into where those resources are being spent, how they support strategic priorities and whether they’re generating measurable returns.

That’s a governance problem, Thurthi says. Without a clear view of how AI investments work alongside human talent and financial resources to drive business results, leaders can’t effectively govern one of the larger new line items on their books.

“It’s no longer just about people, headcount and labor cost,” she says. “It’s now also about AI cost — human and AI capital coming together. Is the combined investment moving the priorities that matter?”

The Numbers Behind The Problem

Separate research from Atlassian suggests many organizations are still operating with funding models built for a different era, even as AI is accelerating the pace of business and forcing leaders to make decisions faster.

The disconnect became even clearer when leaders were asked how they fund strategic work. Just 8% reported using dynamic, outcome-based funding models that allow investment to move as priorities change, yet 92% acknowledged they need that capability. “That’s one of the widest gaps in our research: say versus do,” Thurthi says. “And that’s exactly the muscle AI governance requires.”

Three Systems, No Shared View