Tom Smith talks to Ron Wastal, Chief Ecosystem and Partner Officer, Nicus Software, as part of the Cloud Wars Agentic AI Definition Series, analyzing this fast-moving AI category. The series will also include podcasts, articles, and reports. In this episode, Smith and Wastal explore how Nicus helps enterprises translate technology investments into measurable business outcomes. Wastal shares how AI, FinOps, and the ServiceNow platform converge to drive financial intelligence and strategic value across IT.
Highlights
Introduction to Nicus and Its Core Product Functionality (00:00)
Nicus is a financial intelligence layer for enterprise technology, helping companies plan, track, and optimize their technology investments. The concept of IT financial management evolved into Technology Business Management (TBM) and now includes cloud financial operations (FinOps). Nicus focuses on large enterprises with significant IT spend, typically $100 million to $10 billion, and has rebuilt two applications, costing and planning, onto the ServiceNow platform.
Choosing ServiceNow as the Platform (03:47)
Why does Nicus work with ServiceNow over other options like AWS, Microsoft, or Salesforce? ServiceNow, Wastal explains, is the best platform for IT data. ServiceNow’s configuration management database and common services data model allow Nicus to track various technology spend areas and provide financial intelligence on top of that data.
Strategic Value of AI Investment (08:45)
Nicus can help measure the true cost of ownership (TCO) and unit economics around cloud and AI investments by providing insights into the cost per claim in insurance, cost per machine in manufacturing, and other industry-specific metrics. The goal is to drive strategic planning that improves margins over time and turns cloud and AI spend into measurable business value.
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AI Integration and Leveraging ServiceNow’s Capabilities (12:27)
Nicus turns technology costs into a continuous AI-powered business value, connecting cost, value, and driving actions across technology spend. It leverages ServiceNow’s data, analytic capabilities, workflows, and AI to provide forward-looking insights and optimize technology investments. The focus is on proactively delivering insights through alerts and recommendations, rather than just reports and dashboards.
Proving Value Over Time (14:27)
Predictive AI and GenAI are used to deliver insights and recommendations by tracking actual unit costs and evolving usage patterns. Nicus measures the productivity gains of AI agents versus human agents and optimizes investment strategies by identifying what delivers value. The goal is to make AI insights visible, measurable, and actionable, ensuring that customers can trust and prove the value of AI recommendations.
Future of AI Adoption in Large Enterprises (18:18)
Most customers are still in the early stages of AI adoption, experimenting and piloting use cases. The focus is on prioritizing AI use cases, ensuring trust and proof in AI recommendations, and showing the lineage of insights. Wastal expects customers to move from experimentation to execution by the end of the year, with a focus on cost optimization, forecasting, and decision augmentation.
Analyzing AI Pilot Success (21:11)
Nicus can help analyze AI pilot success, identify spikes in cost models, and optimize investment strategies. The goal is to ensure that AI investments return value and are not overly expensive. It continues to work with customers to refine pricing models and make AI investments more cost-effective and valuable.
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