The fifth FinOps Foundation State of FinOps results were shared last week, and it is clear FinOps teams have their work cut out for them this year! Although we see consistencies with last year’s results, there is one new significant trend: FinOps teams are going to be responsible for more than just public cloud going forward. I’ll dig into that and more below!
FinOps = Cloud and…
Back in November, 2024 as a part of FinOps X Europe, the FinOps Foundation introduced the concept of “Scopes” to address the growing trend of FinOps teams becoming responsible for more than just public cloud. In this year’s survey, the results confirmed that the responsibility of FinOps teams is expanding beyond the cloud. According to the survey, 40% of teams are currently managing SaaS spend, and the number is expected to rise to 65% within the next 12 months. Although not as significant, private cloud is also expected to increase from 24% to 39%.
Source: FinOps Foundation, data.finops.org
Optimization remains a Top Priority
Consistent with last year’s survey, optimization is the top priority for FinOps practitioners. This is not surprising, as optimization (especially workload optimization) is a full time job rather than something that done just once.. If practitioners learned that this year, they likely would know the importance of continuing, or increasing, their investment. This may also be one of the driving factors behind the FinOps team taking ownership of other Scopes. Going forward, don’t be surprised to hear someone say: “Your FinOps team has saved money on our cloud bill, do the same thing for SaaS.”
Source: FinOps Foundation, data.finops.org
Hype for FOCUS continues
One of the most discussed advancements in FinOps continues to be FOCUS, the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification for cloud billing data. In the 2024 release of the State of FinOps survey, FOCUS 1.0 had still not been released and there were more questions than answers. Since then, FOCUS 1.0 has been published with four of the major cloud providers releasing exports of their data in FOCUS format. Although there are still a lot of questions on how organizations can adopt FOCUS, it is clearly going to be a priority for most practitioners in the next 12 months. Not to get ahead of myself, but I’m already excited to see what the State of FinOps survey tells us about FOCUS in 2026!
Source: FinOps Foundation, data.finops.org
Limited Increase in Sustainability Focus
The 2025 State of FinOps survey showed little to no increase in the priority of sustainability globally, despite last year’s responses pointing to an expected increase. It is the second to last priority for practitioners currently, with no expected increase in the next 12 months. There are many explanations, but a significant factor is the lack of major advancements by cloud providers in the porting of carbon or energy. While adoption of FOCUS has been advanced by the cloud providers who have provided data within the FOCUS standard, sustainability initiatives will remain a low priority at organizations until cloud providers provide accurate visibility into carbon and energy consumption.
Source: FinOps Foundation, data.finops.org
AI Spend will continue to grow
Since the keynote at FinOps X 2023, AI has been a consistent topic in the FinOps world. The State of FinOps survey clearly showed the growth of AI spend as well as the predicted ownership of the FinOps team over this spend. With that increase in ownership, FinOps teams will prioritize visibility and allocation, which will be particularly powerful in supporting unit economics and making a connection between AI investments and their contributions to business goals. By bringing in and allocating this new spend, organizations can have an even clearer picture of their cost per unit.
Source: FinOps Foundation, data.finops.org
Conclusion
This year’s State of FinOps survey did not vary drastically from what we saw in last year’s report. From key customer priorities to the number of tools used, the results are similar to last year’s report. The biggest year over year change is the increase in ownership of the FinOps team (from Scopes to AI). With many teams reporting no plan to increase in headcount, the role of the FinOps team will need to change over the next year to more extensively support the organization’s “cloud strategy” and more.
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