Australian businesses paying to use AI are weighing up what value they are getting from the disruptive technology."It's actually only really a relatively new thing that we have started to speak about," Anna Volkova, the head of people and culture at HR software company HiBob, told ABC News.The platform has seen wins from using artificial intelligence, but it has been difficult to judge that against the mounting cost.With AI capabilities changing so quickly, Ms Volkova said the business can "never catch up" with the need to redesign how it works to get the most out of it.This has made it hard to work out precisely if the money is being spent effectively."We'll probably start to see impact to our bottom line in maybe two or three years, and I think most businesses are in that boat."Despite the cost of AI tokens tumbling, businesses are spending more than ever. (ABC News graphic)Jeremy Pell, whose firm Elastic helps companies to manage the cost of AI, agreed with that estimate."We're in a really interesting time at the moment," he said."Businesses are forced to pay this additional investment into AI, but they haven't yet reaped the 'bottom-line' benefits of the cost savings yet."Jeremy Pell says companies have not yet reaped the bottom-line benefits. (ABC News: Berge Breiland)Last week, Assistant Minister for Technology and the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton described the value flowing out of Australia via AI as a "distant sucking sound".In a speech at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, he said Australians were already spending $5-8 billion each year on artificial intelligence."With the overwhelming majority of those payments flowing offshore, in effect, we are creating a new import bill. An import bill for intelligence."That is just the start, with the government estimating local spending on AI could "plausibly" reach $20 billion to $40 billion annually within a decade.Tokens adding up to billionsEven a few years ago, AI was not a line item companies had in annual budgets.Now, in the current reporting season for ASX-listed companies, you can measure it in billions.The technology spend at Australia's biggest bank, the Commonwealth Bank, increased from $2.3 billion in the 2025 financial year to $2.4 billion in this most recent financial year. It lists savings too."Measured gross benefits from AI use cases, including reinvested capacity, were [around] $200 million in FY26," its results presentation noted."Gross benefits from AI use cases are expected to double in FY27, and to exceed investment."On Wall Street, investors are asking whether the billions invested by US tech giants in AI will ever be justified by returns, creating concern about an AI-fuelled stock market bubble.Stu Scotis, AI leader for consulting firm Deloitte, said the equation of how to spend an IT budget is getting tougher.Stu Scotis says there are more uses of AI for increasingly complex tasks.