As tech giants race to build AI infrastructure; microsoft It spent $34.9 billion in just one quarter. meta plans to spend up to $72 billion this year, but they may not be the only ones funding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending.
Consumers are increasingly faced with an AI-soaked subscription tier as tech companies seek to monetize huge investments and bundle hard-to-separate AI tools into their software products. This makes it difficult for customers to opt out, and it can be costly if they don’t opt out.
One example is Microsoft 365, which includes Copilot AI capabilities in many layers. The company recently introduced Microsoft 365 Premium, which bundles Copilot Pro features with Microsoft 365 for $19.99 per month. Previously, Copilot Pro cost $20 per month on top of their existing subscription, and for use with desktop Office apps, customers also needed a separate Microsoft 365 Personal ($6.99 per month) or Family ($9.99 per month) plan, for a total of about $27 to $30 per month. The underlying Microsoft 365 subscription itself is becoming increasingly important as Microsoft de-emphasizes standalone Office purchases and makes cloud integration central to document workflows.
Similar bundles of AI tools are becoming the norm. alphabet to adobe.
For example, in March 2025, Google Workspace added the Gemini AI assistant to Business and Enterprise plans, but the price increased by about $2 to $4 per user per month, or about 16 to 33 percent, depending on the tier. Additionally, AI features cannot be removed or opted out in most cases. A company with 50 people using Business Plus will pay an additional $2,400 per year.
Starting in mid-2025, Adobe will rebrand Creative Cloud All Apps to Creative Cloud Pro and increase the price from $59.99 to $69.99 per month (or $659.88 to $779.99 per year). This is a $10/month price increase related to enhanced generative AI features such as unlimited standard image and vector generation.
Experts say it doesn’t really matter whether customers want AI or not, it’s the reputation that costs.
“AI is all the rage right now, and the buzz is reinforcing what marketers call value bias,” said Elizabeth Perkins, a professor of practice at Roanoke College. “When something is labeled ‘AI-powered,’ people assume it must be smarter and more useful, even if the experience is barely different. That sense of progress makes the additional subscription feel justified, until consumers start asking whether they are paying for innovation or just a fantasy,” she added.
Microsoft, Adobe, and Google did not respond to requests for comment.
Fred Hicks, assistant vice president and chief information officer at Adelphi University, said the companies are adding additional fees to help pay for the multibillion-dollar data center and its insatiable energy needs.
“The cost and power consumption of GPU clusters is so high that you can recover those costs by building them into a subscription. We’ve seen software licenses turn to subscription models,” Hicks said, pointing to Microsoft and Adobe Creative Cloud as examples of approaches taken before the AI boom. “This creates a funding model with fixed income compared to a single-cost perpetual license. AI subscriptions follow the same philosophy,” he said.
Personalized AI pays off over time
Hicks said AI embedded in everything will become ubiquitous at some point in the near future, as companies that don’t implement it will lose their market advantage. For consumers, if they have it in their lives on a regular basis, the personalization that can be fine-tuned through AI can pay for itself over time.
“Personalization using the same AI model trains the user’s habits and preferences, allowing us to more accurately personalize the user’s needs. This requires long-term engagement and subscription,” Hicks said.
But, as is already happening with streaming services, oversubscription will become an issue, prompting consumers to rethink what they really need and eliminate at least some subscriptions to reduce costs. When it comes to software, it can be easier said than done.
“It will be nearly impossible to separate AI subscriptions from other services. Google and Microsoft currently include basic AI in many of their application subscriptions. Deeper integration requires higher layers and increases costs,” Hicks said.
Chris Sorensen, CEO of US-based SaaS company PhoneBurner, says a quiet but important shift is underway.
“AI itself is not just improving products, it’s redefining how pricing structures work. Companies like Adobe, Microsoft, and Google are using AI’s ‘enhancements’ to justify recurring revenue where previously a one-time license would have been sufficient,” Sorensen said, adding that subscription models make sense because they hide incremental costs while generating predictable revenue.
There is a consumer backlash
“Many consumers are starting to notice this change. After a while, they start to realize they’re paying $10 here and $20 there for features they don’t use or didn’t actively opt in to,” Sorensen said. He also said additional revenue, which may benefit companies now, could face further backlash in the future.
“While there has been some backlash, especially in the creative and productive community, I believe this model is only going to grow,” Sorensen said. He thinks what’s likely to happen is that companies will build a layer of “AI premium intelligence” and eventually turn software ownership into a perpetual rental.
Tien Tzuo, founder and CEO of Zuora, an enterprise software company that provides a platform for businesses to launch, manage and monetize subscription-based services, says AI-enabled products and rising prices are becoming increasingly troublesome for consumers.
“Every company is building AI into their products, but it’s the biggest companies like Adobe, Microsoft, and Google that often increase prices for no apparent reason. Companies like Zendesk are taking a more transparent and customer-friendly approach by correlating AI pricing with outcomes, and paying only if AI solves a ticket,” Tzuo said.
If consumers are hesitant enough to pay extra, especially if the use case proves to be overwhelming for many, there could be a future where AI becomes pay-as-you-go, Tzuo said.
“We’re seeing an explosion of interest in pay-as-you-go pricing for AI, where customers can control how much they pay based on what they consume,” he said. “AI is changing what ‘value’ means, and pay-per-use helps companies prove that. How often you use a product and how often you see results should speak for itself,” Tsou added.
Ananya Sen, assistant professor of information technology and management at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, said the rise in AI bundling is just an extension of what’s been happening online for years. “The question is, how can you subscribe with one click, but to unsubscribe you have to make a phone call? In some ways, what we’re seeing with AI products is a continuation of that, but maybe on a much larger scale,” Sen said.
Many people don’t understand AI products or existing software tools, so they may not know what they’re choosing, but ironically, today’s subscriptions can end up being more secure than the consumer’s best interests. It’s a result of behavioral psychology, he says.
“Once you opt in, there is inertia. Opting out is difficult and you have to make an active choice. Companies are taking advantage of this and abusing it,” Sen said. “And when it comes to AI products, it’s a rapidly evolving field. For a normal online consumer using these different tools, it’s hard to keep track. It becomes a bandwidth issue, mental bandwidth, attention span issue,” he added.
Sen says consumers need to actively participate in their own subscription ecosystem. “There should be some responsibility on the consumer’s part, but it’s a two-way street. These small amounts add up,” Sen said.
Many consumers still have the advantage of continuing to use the free basic version of the software. However, companies will do everything they can to move further towards subscription products. “Even if you think about the big companies, the majority of their users are on the basic free version. Even for the most prominent companies, it’s difficult to convert people to subscriptions,” Sen said.
