The Transition Cost Iceberg

The AI subscription costs one hundred dollars per month. The organizational transformation costs everything else. This distinction — between the price of the tool and the cost of the transition — is the measurement error that most distorts the policy conversation about AI. The error is natural because the tool price is visible, quantifiable, and strikingly low. One hundred dollars per month for a twenty-fold productivity multiplier is, by any conventional cost-benefit calculation, the most attractive investment in the history of enterprise technology. The price anchors the conversation. The cost disappears behind it. Coyle's framework identifies four categories of expenditure that the subscription price does not capture: organizational restructuring, human capital adaptation, educational redesign, and social safety net expansion — each substantial, none appearing in the cost calculations that organizations and governments use to evaluate AI adoption.