I saw that Porsche just signed a five-year, €1.25B deal with TCS for AI implementation — about 0.7% per year against their ~€38B in annual revenue. Less than 1% is a good starting point for allocation, better framed as AI cost as a percentage of income than as a raw dollar figure.

A line item that small, against the productivity, efficiency, and new revenue it unlocks, is probably the highest-ROI dollar on the whole P&L. Most companies still budget AI like a software subscription, something to minimize, but Porsche's treating it like R&D — appropriately.

Small companies should be thinking the same way, just at their own scale. Not "what's the cheapest AI tool," but "what's the smallest line item that moves the most in productivity and revenue."