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What's New in Cloud FinOps: May 2026 Monthly Recap
In this combined monthly recap for May 2026, Frank Contrepois and Stephen Old dive into a vast array of updates across AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, with a special focus on the evolving landscape of AI FinOps, hybrid cloud challenges, and a barrage of storage news.
The Expanding Scope of FinOps: From Data Centre to AI
The discussion opens by exploring the expansion of FinOps beyond the public cloud to encompass on-premise data centres, software, AI, and sustainability. A central theme is the application of the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS) to on-premise environments. Stephen shares firsthand experience transposing software data into FOCUS to create a converged platform, highlighting the fundamental data challenges, from ingesting contract data to managing the high velocity of cloud data.
The conversation then shifts to the burgeoning role of AI, noting its inclusion alongside SaaS and professional services in the modern FinOps scope. This introduces new forecasting challenges, as traditional 18-month budget cycles clash with the rapid pace of weekly AI model releases.
A critical point is also raised regarding sustainability. The hosts discuss Amazon's board rejecting a shareholder proposal for detailed climate disclosures, which poses a significant challenge for companies needing granular data for CSRD and SEC compliance.
Major Cloud Updates: April 2026
AI & FinOps Visibility:
A major theme is the improvement in attributing AI spend. A game-changing update from AWS means Bedrock API calls now automatically record the IAM identity (user or role) of the caller directly into CUR 2.0 and Cost Explorer. This eliminates the complex need to reconcile CloudTrail logs to determine who is driving Bedrock costs.
Similarly, Amazon Q is now embedded in the AWS Cost Explorer, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their spending (e.g., "Why did my RDS costs spike last month?"). This conversational analysis approach comes with a free tier of 50 queries per month.
On the Google Cloud side, a new billing overview widget for Gemini and Vertex AI spend is now in preview. Google is also introducing a "FinOps Explainability Agent," an autonomous AI agent to investigate AI cost drivers, and "Spend Caps" (Private Preview) for services like AI Studio and Vertex AI, which provide crucial cost control by pausing API traffic when a budget is hit.
For those managing GPU workloads, Amazon ECS managed instances now support NVIDIA GPU metrics in CloudWatch Container Insights, enabling real-time visibility into GPU utilisation and health to optimise expensive accelerated computing.
Cost & Usage Reporting (CUR) Enhancements:
There are hints of a potential enhancement to AWS CUR 2.0, which could see new columns added to directly link API calls with costs, revolutionising cost allocation. AWS has also introduced:
Scheduled Email Delivery for Billing Dashboards: Securely send reports to stakeholders without console access.
Billing Conductor Pass-Through Plan: Simplifies centralised billing for billing transfer users.
Cost Optimization Hub CSV Downloads: Easily export savings recommendations.
Find out how to leverage CUR for security: "Identifying security risks using AWS cost and usage report data"
Compute & Database Innovations:
AWS: Released a wave of 8th Generation Intel Instances (C8i, M8i, R8i and network-optimised versions) powered by custom 6th Gen Xeon processors. EC2 Capacity Manager also now supports tag-based dimensions, allowing for more granular capacity optimisation. Amazon Aurora Serverless now boasts up to 30% better performance and, crucially, scales down to zero, a cost-effective option for unpredictable agentic AI workloads.
Google Cloud: At Google Cloud Next, they announced both ends of the performance spectrum. The 8th Generation TPUs (v8t for training, v8i for inference) offer massive scale and performance-per-dollar improvements. In a move to democratise access, Google also made fractional GPUs (1/2, 1/4, or 1/8) on the G4 series generally available, a game-changer for cost-effectively running smaller workloads. The GKE workload recommender is also now integrated into the FinOps Hub.
Azure: Now supports NVIDIA's powerful H100 and H200 GPUs on Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) for large-scale AI/HPC workloads. For database users, the GA of Premium SSD v2 for Azure Database for PostgreSQL promises significantly higher IOPS and better price-performance.
A Deep Dive into Azure Storage:
The episode covers an "overload" of Azure storage updates with significant FinOps implications:
Minimum Billable Object Size: From 1st July 2026 for new accounts (and 2027 for all), objects smaller than 128KB in cool, cold, and archive tiers will be billed as if they are 128KB.
Smart Tier for Azure Blob & ADLS (GA): To mitigate the above, this feature automatically tiers data based on access patterns but introduces a monitoring fee for objects over 128KB, creating a new optimisation puzzle.
Azure NetApp Files (ANF) Ransomware Protection: Now GA and included as part of the service at no extra charge.
Finally, the hosts tackle "The Big Silence on Memory Prices," noting that despite DDR memory prices soaring 300-400% from mid-2025 lows, the hyperscalers have remained silent, absorbing the cost and making it difficult for smaller providers to compete.
Explore the official announcements:
AI Bill of Materials Whitepaper: www.wiz.io/go/ai-security/ai-bill-of-materials
AWS Article on Amazon Q: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws-cloud-financial-management/transforming-finops-with-the-latest-amazon-q-cost-capabilities/
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