Cloud ROI Is Still Out of Reach: What 350 IT Leaders Revealed About the State of FinOps in 2025 

In CloudBolt’s 2025 Industry Insights report “Performance vs. Perception: The FinOps Execution Gap,” based on a survey of 350 senior IT leaders, a striking pattern emerged: leaders say their FinOps practices are mature, automated, and business-aligned—but the data tells a different story. Despite years of progress and growing adoption, nearly 80% of organizations still struggle to consistently demonstrate return on investment (ROI) of their cloud strategy. 

FinOps Confidence Runs High. Capabilities? Well… 

When asked about their FinOps maturity: 

• 95% of respondents said they’ve automated cloud optimization to some degree. 

• Nearly half say they’re mostly automated. 

But the results aren’t matching the rhetoric: 

• 65% say over 20% of optimization recommendations go unimplemented. 

• 58% take weeks or longer to remediate known cloud waste. 

• Only 17% report having fully automated, AI/ML-powered environments.

The takeaway? Automation is widely claimed, but rarely delivering. 

Kubernetes: A Widespread Cost Driver—And Blind Spot 

Kubernetes has become a cornerstone of modern cloud infrastructure, but cost control hasn’t kept up: 

• 98% say Kubernetes is a significant driver of cloud spend. 

• 91% say they can’t effectively optimize it. 

Organizations struggle with: 

• Workload-level cost allocation (44%) 

• Horizontal and vertical autoscaling (45% and 43%) 

• Generating accurate cost reporting (33%) 

Even teams with strong governance elsewhere are flying blind in Kubernetes. 

Governance Without Execution 

80% agree that those in charge of cloud spend lack tools to enforce governance. Yet only 5% blame tooling for ROI failure. 

This disconnect points to an uncomfortable truth: visibility is everywhere, but action is rare. Dashboards have outpaced enforcement. 

AI: The Expense and the Answer 

AI and GenAI tools are now common in the enterprise tech stack: 

• 87% report using ChatGPT 

• 73% report using Gemini 

• 40% are prioritizing funding for AI/ML cloud-cost optimization in the next 6–12 months 

But teams are reaching for advanced automation while skipping foundational hygiene. Tagging and resource management—essential prerequisites—still rank as top barriers to ROI. 

The Future of FinOps: Expanding Mandates, Sharper Focus 

Top-funded FinOps priorities for the next 12 months: 

• AI/ML cost optimization (40%) 

• Hybrid multi-cloud management (39%) 

• SaaS-licensing optimization (37%) 

As organizations chase ROI from emerging technologies, FinOps priorities are expanding beyond public cloud. AI/ML, hybrid infrastructure, and SaaS sprawl are driving a broader, more complex optimization mandate. The FinOps remit is growing—and so is the need for shared ownership and continuous optimization. 

Want deeper data cuts, insights, and recommendations?  

Download the full 2025 CloudBolt Industry Insights report for a complete breakdown of what’s holding teams back—and what the most advanced organizations are doing differently.