Dive Brief:

• The rise of data access fees in enterprise software is introducing unexpected costs for organizations as they scale artificial intelligence initiatives, according to a recent Deloitte report.
• The consulting firm said software vendors are increasingly exploring ways to monetize access to enterprise data — a practice known as “tollgating” — as part of a broader shift away from traditional pricing models.
• “Organizations thought they owned their data. What tollgating has done is tell them they don’t really, because it’s being fenced or metered or sold back to them,” China Widener, vice chair and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader at Deloitte, said in an interview.

Dive Insight:

Data access policies have long been embedded in enterprise software contracts, often buried in fine print and rarely enforced in practice, according to the research.

What is changing, however, is enforcement. Vendors are beginning to actively apply these long-standing provisions in the context of AI deployments.

“Enterprises that built their AI and analytics strategies on open data access assumptions are now discovering unexpected costs mid-program,” the report said. “This represents a category of financial risk that most tech budgets and AI business cases simply did not model and uncertainty on how to proceed confidently in a fast-changing market.”

Widener said the trend is already causing “sticker shock” for some companies.

“As the AI market matures, vendors are looking for new ways to extract value,” she said.

Rather than waiting for software contracts to come up for renewal, Deloitte recommends that organizations address potential tollgating issues during broader enterprise planning cycles, when AI architectures, budgets and technology roadmaps are still being developed.

By the time renewal negotiations begin, the report said, many of the most important technology and investment decisions have already been made.

The report also recommends auditing legacy software agreements before contract renewals or acquisitions to identify data rights and other strategic provisions that may no longer be available in newer contracts. Once those rights are surrendered during modernization efforts, Deloitte said, they can be difficult to recover.

The shift requires closer collaboration across finance, technology and procurement as AI pricing models become more complex, Widener said.

“The CFO, the CIO, and the chief procurement officer all have to get aligned now more than ever,” she said.