The SaaS Academy

Key takeaways

• AI measurement breaks into four layers: Consumption → Work → Outcomes → Business Impact. Each layer is harder to measure — and more meaningful — than the one below it.
• Tokens, seats, and DAUs sit below Layer 1. They're not business metrics. A CFO doesn't care that your AI processed 9 billion tokens last quarter. Yes, on the expense side, but we are beyond that now.
• Public tech companies setting the AI metrics framework: Salesforce's Agentic Work Unit, or AWU, is Layer 2; Intercom Fin's per-resolution pricing is Layer 3; ServiceNow's $100M internal savings claim is Layer 4.
• A blended gross margin of 95% can drop to 74% — and gross profit dollars can collapse 52% — while the percentage still looks "fine." Measuring at the wrong layer hides the damage.
• Three things to do this week: pull a clean AI cost report, fill in a work-unit definition, and build a one-page AI metrics summary.

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