The FinOps Foundation just released the sixth installment of its annual State of FinOps report. The 2025 installment contains a few key themes:
- Cloud+: Companies are increasingly relying on more than just the public cloud — e.g., SaaS, AI — to power their businesses
- Savings now: By far, companies’ top current FinOps priority is workload optimization and waste reduction
- AI visibility: As companies increase their AI investments, they’re more concerned with allocating their AI spend than optimizing it
In this blog, we give a little more detail on each, highlighting key statistics and takeaways from the State of FinOps 2025.
Now Streaming On Cloud+
The main theme of the State of FinOps 2025: Cloud+. No, Cloud+ isn’t yet another streaming platform you need to stay current on Severance. It refers to all the non-public-cloud spending — e.g., SaaS and AI — that organizations group under the same umbrella as their AWS, GCP, and Azure spending.
Cloud+ investments are on the rise: 65% of companies expect to increase their SaaS investments (by an estimated 25%). And they’re not just increasing these investments; they’re also planning to manage them more proactively. Last year, only 31% of companies planned to proactively manage their AI spending. This year, 63% will — versus the 92% who plan to increase their AI investments (McKinsey).
Moreover, companies know they can’t do it alone. The top method for achieving FinOps priorities remains Organizational Alignment, but Investment and Tooling was mentioned by 34% of respondents — 20% more than last year. Half of companies expect to increase their licensing investments (by an estimated 21%).
In short: Companies are increasingly taking a multi-cloud approach, feeling pressure to keep these costs under control, and looking to third-party platforms like CloudZero to do it.
What A FinOps Practitioner Wants
Waste reduction.
Let us say that again: Waste reduction.
In the list ranking of “Current Priorities,” “Workload optimization and waste reduction” topped the list with a whopping 50% of respondents stating it as their top FinOps priority. The list looks like the leaderboard at the 2000 U.S. Open; waste reduction is Tiger Woods — everything else is battling for second place
Current Priorities #2 and #3 are “Full allocation of cloud spending” and “Accurate forecasting of spend.” In addition to the average of 30% savings our customers realize in year one, CloudZero excels in the allocation category, and our Budgets, Forecasts, and Analytics features empower customers to predict and prepare for the future of their cloud spending.
Looking into the future, companies continue to aspire to unit economics. “Getting to unit economics” came in fourth in the “Future Priorities” section, whose list generated a lot more parity than the “Current Priorities” one.
For AI Spending, Visibility > Optimization
Asked to rank the most urgent FinOps capabilities regarding AI spending, companies ranked visibility over optimization. This likely has to do with the fact that most AI spending remains experimental, and companies will begin optimizing once they have a solid understanding of how their AI-powered products and features deliver real customer value.
This fits snugly with CloudZero’s emphasis on proactive AI efficiency story: Visibility is a necessary bedrock for optimization. The sooner companies achieve complete cost visibility, the easier it will be for them to identify where and how to optimize.
Struggle Bus: FOCUS And Sustainability
57% of respondents did say they have plans to use FOCUS in the next 12 months, but made heavy reference to implementation obstacles, including:
- SaaS vendors not using it yet
- Limited time and skills available to use it effectively
- Internal IT restrictions
The FinOps Foundation plans to incorporate SaaS data in FOCUS 1.2, so this has the potential to change. But FOCUS has yet to become the industry standard, and there are some big obstacles yet to overcome.
As for sustainability, reporting has increased in Europe (at a lower rate than expected) and stayed flat in North America. Only 3% of FinOps practices are making optimizations based on sustainability.
How CloudZero Can Help
The cloud — and all it encompasses — is only growing more essential, and companies’ usage of it is only growing more complex. In a world where you’re using multiple cloud providers, utilizing containerized infrastructure, experimenting with AI, and facing pressure to make it make business sense, CloudZero is here to help.
CloudZero has been Cloud+ from day one. Our AnyCost™ adaptor was the first of its kind, and continues to be the most versatile option for companies looking to unify all sources of cloud, PaaS, and SaaS spending. Plus, our integrations for Snowflake, New Relic, Databricks, Datadog, MongoDB, and more make it seamless to ingest billing data from top SaaS and PaaS providers.
CloudZero’s belief has long been that visibility is the best foundation for true, durable optimization. Companies want AI visibility now; CloudZero is the only cost optimization solution capable of giving companies comprehensive AI cost visibility. When it comes time to optimize, you’ll have a complete roadmap.
CloudZero is the global leader in proactive cloud efficiency, and the platform of choice for multi-cloud companies experimenting with AI. To learn more, schedule a CloudZero demo.
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