---
published: true
layout: post
title: The Dissonance of Reducing Cloud Spend and Going All In On AI
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/apievangelist/api-evangelist-images/the-dissonance-of-reducing-cloud-spend-and-going-all-in-on-ai.png
date: 2026-07-28
author: Kin Lane
tags:
  - API Governance
  - AI
  - Cloud
  - Strategy
  - Enterprise
  - APIs
---
It is always interesting to talk with folks within the enterprise right now and get their off the record feedback on what it is like to work within their companies today. One of the reasons I've become so jaded when it comes to API governance, and believing that enterprises are interested in doing the right thing, is because of the dissonance that exists right now between our usage of the cloud and our usage of artificial intelligence—both of which are API-driven activities.

You can watch [my conversation with Simon Wardley](https://conversations.apievangelist.com/store/2026-06-19-simon-wardley/) to learn a little more about the history of cloud computing colliding with the present of artificial intelligence, but in short—we haven't learned a thing. Not only have we not learned a thing, we are actively pushing forward on two conflicting fronts as if they don't exist. People I am talking to are being directed to reduce their cloud spend at all cost while simultaneously increasing their AI spend, without any reflection on where we are, or where we are going, when it comes to these fundamental technologies.

It is realities like this that make governance so untenable in most organizations. There is no balance. There is no logic. You can't govern in such rampant dissonance. It is a game where you have to become complicit in business and politics that transcends any of the zeroes and ones of our technology. It really is a low point in this technology, business, and political landscape I have been tracking on since 2010. Things were increasingly seeming out of whack when it came to the business and politics, but now I'd say it is beyond whack, and technology isn't even feasible in the business and political gravity that exists today.

When everything is financialized, nothing matters, except whatever the football of the day or week is. I keep waiting for reality to settle in, but I think this goes beyond just the technology sector right now, and the gravity that exists around the business and political climate in the United States is setting the tone. I don't think the AI moment is going to subside until the Trump moment subsides. I just don't think there is enough appetite for accountability in the United States right now, and this is pushing enterprise leadership to do things they wouldn't used to do. We will just have to hang on until the next election cycle.

I feel for my friends who work in some of these companies, just trying to hang on to their paycheck and healthcare.