# My AI team gets another pay rise.

2026-07-17 · Joakim Jardenberg. English translation by AI. Original wording preserved. Titles and image descriptions added by AI.

My AI team has just had another pay rise. Up 20% in five months.

And I’m fairly sure the calculation still misses quite a few costs.

Even so, this is unquestionably one of the best investments I make every month. Even at ten times the cost, the ROI would still be fantastic.

Expensive is not the same as poor value.

But also: the era when the big AI companies lured us in with heavily subsidised prices is coming to an end. Soon it will matter more to understand which models should do what, when and at what price, rather than simply using AI.

So my advice is simple: experiment now. Compare. Learn. Build your AI team while experimenting is still cheap. A year from now, optimisation will probably be a competitive advantage.

![The JJ AI Team page showing 45 AI services, 53 active tools and a historical monthly cost estimate of $3,248.](https://jardenberg.com/images/notes/backfill/7483888607750066177-1.jpg)

Image description · AI: The JJ AI Team page showing 45 AI services, 53 active tools and a historical monthly cost estimate of $3,248. The source image is preserved unchanged.

[Original LinkedIn post](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7483888607750066177/)

## Original wording

Mitt AI-team har precis fått ännu en löneökning. +20 % på fem månader.

Och jag är ganska säker på att kalkylen fortfarande missar en hel del kostnader.

Ändå är det här, utan tvekan, en av de bästa investeringar jag gör varje månad. Även om den kostade tio gånger mer hade ROI:n fortfarande varit fantastisk.

Dyrt är inte samma sak som dåligt värde.

Men också, den tid då de stora AI-bolagen lockade oss med kraftigt subventionerade priser går mot sitt slut. Snart blir det viktigare att inte bara använda AI, utan att förstå vilka modeller som ska göra vad, när och till vilket pris.

Så mitt råd är enkelt: testa nu. Jämför. Lär dig. Bygg ditt AI-team medan det fortfarande är billigt att experimentera. Om ett år kommer optimering sannolikt att vara en konkurrensfördel.

Source: https://jardenberg.com/notes/my-ai-team-gets-another-pay-rise

Joakim Jardenberg. English translation by AI. Original wording preserved. Titles and image descriptions added by AI.

Joakim Jardenberg’s own writing: CC BY 4.0. Credit Joakim Jardenberg and preserve AI + JJ / AI translation attribution. Third-party quotations, recommendations, photographs, screenshots, logos and media retain their own rights and are excluded.
Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/