# Useful intelligence per dollar

A quality-adjusted measure of useful AI outcomes delivered for each dollar of spend.

Coined by: Sarah Friar / OpenAI

Coined in the context of Sarah Friar's commentary at OpenAI, the phrase pushes back on optimizing for raw token efficiency alone. A cheaper answer that has to be redone is not efficient — this term ties reduced consumption to preserved output quality, rather than treating minimized token use as a goal in itself.

**Related research:**
- [Unlocking AI Business Value with FinOps](https://measuredvalue.ai/research/finops-foundation-unlocking-ai-business-value/)