The Future of FinOps with Google’s VP of Engineering

Key Insight: Google Cloud is investing in data to help FinOps Practitioners drive the next level of business innovation.

At FinOps X in San Diego in June 2024, J.R. Storment, Executive Director of the FinOps Foundation, sat down with Pravir Gupta, VP of Engineering at Google Cloud, to ask what he thinks the Future of FinOps will look like.

Pravir noted that customer expectations are evolving; Practitioners need more granular and more real-time data so they can properly forecast, allocate, and optimize costs. Google is investing in data and bringing existing technologies to FinOps use cases (e.g., anomaly detection algorithm). Google is also “all in” on the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS™), which Pravir believes will breed the next level of innovation in FinOps by bringing more clarity to cost data.

Looking ahead, Pravir believes that in the next few years we will see GenAI democratize complex FinOps data, making it more accessible to non-technical stakeholders. This will actually help us get “back to the basics,” which don’t go away with AI. Instead, AI will help us perform the basic goals of FinOps – understand and optimize unit economics.

Pravir also anticipates that FinOps Practitioners will work with Product to “shift left,” or make cost-aware product decisions earlier in the product development life cycle.

Finally, Pravir says that a push for Cloud Sustainability will come from two places: European government regulations, and company employees who push their organization toward more sustainable operations.