# CollectivIQ targets AI costs with control platform > Source: > Published: 2026-07-27 13:00:45+00:00 ### Exclusive: CollectivIQ targets AI costs with control platform Boston-based startup [CollectivIQ Inc.](https://www.collectiviq.ai/) is targeting runaway artificial intelligence costs with a platform intended to give businesses control over how models are used. The company describes its product as an “AI consensus platform” that allows administrators to assign employees access to different classes of AI models according to their roles, departments, business requirements and budgets. Admins can also impose organization-wide spending restrictions and daily cost and token limits for individual workers. The features address a growing problem for companies that are moving generative AI from small experiments into broader production use. Reasoning models, background processes and autonomous agents can consume tokens without employees or managers having a clear view of the resulting expense. Recent high-profile examples include Uber Technologies Inc. [burning through](https://www.cio.com/article/4199599/getting-a-grip-on-shadow-tokens-and-ai-blowouts.html) its entire annual AI coding budget in just four months and Swan AI Inc. [running up](https://cryptobriefing.com/ai-price-war-startups-tech-giants/) a $113,000 monthly bill for a four-person team. CollectivIQ said its new controls expose usage at both the employee and company levels and allow administrators to restrict background and agentic work. The company takes a different approach from enterprise AI services built around a single model provider. Its platform connects to models from OpenAI LLC, Google LLC, Anthropic PBC, XAI LLC and other suppliers. Users can query several models and receive a synthesized answer that identifies areas of agreement and disagreement. Chief Executive John Davie said the platform was developed after he encountered the cost and capability tradeoffs involved in making AI broadly available at Buyers Edge Platform LLC, the restaurant and food-service procurement technology company he also leads. “I didn’t want to give my employees a downgraded, generic AI,” Davie said. But providing every employee with a conventional enterprise AI license would have cost about $700,000 annually, he added. CollectivIQ instead accesses models through their application programming interfaces, paying for the tokens consumed rather than a full seat license for each worker. Its software then routes requests according to their difficulty. Davie said the company can provide enterprise customers with at least 100 users with pricing of around $10 per user per month, compared with $40 for some individual premium AI subscriptions. “Part of the secret sauce is that we’re using the APIs and smart piecing,” he said. Customers may also connect their own models. The newly introduced Auto Mode evaluates a prompt and selects a low-, medium- or high-cost model tier. A straightforward request can go to a less expensive model, while a reasoning-intensive or subjective question may be directed to a more capable one. Companies can customize access for particular employees. The approach is also meant to address an apparent contradiction in CollectivIQ’s design: Consulting multiple models could consume more tokens than asking only one. Davie said the company initially queried the most advanced models for every request but changed its routing as reasoning models increased response times and costs. Users who select the highest tier accept that the answer may take longer, he said, whereas fast models have shorter response times. To produce a consensus answer, the platform uses what CollectivIQ calls arbiter and judge stages to compare model responses. If most models agree on a statistic or data point, the system can discount an outlying answer while still showing the user where models differ. A newer “argue mode” sends the models through a round of challenging one another’s responses. Users can see responses from individual models and make their own judgments. The company is positioning those comparisons as protection against hallucinations and dependence on any one AI supplier. “Model providers aren’t going to check their answers against competitors,” Davie said. CollectivIQ said it has about 25 enterprise accounts representing hundreds of users and plans a broader public launch in early August. The company is self-funded but expects to seek outside investment within the next three months, Davie said. ##### Image: SiliconANGLE/Ideogram # A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE: Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. **Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network**, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities. **15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos**, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more** 11.4k+ theCUBE alumni**— Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network. # Are you AWS customer? 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