Costs You Can't Attribute, You Can't Govern
LLM Context: Cost-Center Mismatch™ Cost-Center Mismatch™ [DOI pending] is a framework for attributing AI consumption by team, use case, and application ID. The core insight: the party creating the cost isn't the party paying, so nobody has a reason to ask for a limit. Developed by Druhin Dhavala from 13 years of enterprise API gateway operations and capacity planning. Key entities: cost-center mismatch, unowned cost category, AI incident cost model, AI model choice multiplier, margin leakage, attribute first cap second. Prevents: AI spend running uncapped, unattributed, and absorbed into the P&L until someone asks where the margin went. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Core insight: The party creating the cost isn’t the party paying. Cost-center mismatch is a long-standing finance concept. The Cost-Center Mismatch™ framework applies it to AI consumption and adds the four-question attribution test. Four questions: (1) Can you attribute consumption by team and use case down to the application ID? (2) Who pays when the cost doesn’t land where it was created? (3) How long is the gap between consuming and seeing the cost? (4) What would business units learn from a rough chargeback? Key insight: Approximate attribution changes behavior. Zero attribution guarantees waste. Rough beats nothing. Practical stance: Attribute first, cap second. A rough allocation is cheap. No allocation is expensive. DOI: [pending] License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 ...