Know Before You Go: your re:Invent 2026 guide to managing cloud and AI spend

As the world is embracing AI at scale, those of you who manage the IT spend are facing a new puzzle. If the previous era of Cloud Financial Management (CFM) required IT and finance leaders to be bilingual across cloud and finance, the AI era adds new vocabulary and cost dimensions, such as tokens. Heard of this one? Just when you felt you had a handle on the total cost of ownership (TCO), it has expanded into the total cost of AI (TCA). The new landscape demands that you rethink how you manage costs, so you can reach the level of cost traceability and control that your organization needs to justify the investment.

At this year’s re:Invent, we’ve lined up a fantastic set of sessions to get you up to speed on the latest AI cost management frameworks, solutions, and real-life success stories. They will help you wrap your head around concepts, such as tokenomics, and get ahead of the AI cost management game. Across tracks, more than 30 sessions fall under the theme of cloud financial management and AI cost management. In this blog post, I highlight nine of them and share where you can find AWS FinOps experts and peers throughout the week.

Three Themes

Before diving into the sessions, here are the three themes you’ll see woven throughout various sessions:

1. Native visibility and control over AI costs (FinOps for AI): As AI adoption accelerates, we want you to have a detailed view into your AI spending, so you can scale without losing financial control.
2. Foundational FinOps excellence: Granular cost allocation, better forecasting, and custom benefit sharing, so every dollar is visible, planned for, and intentionally shared.
3. AI for FinOps: Putting AI to work for your FinOps teams, so you can stay focused on the critical business tasks and spend less time managing both existing cloud spend and emerging AI costs.

Stay in the Know (Breakout Sessions)

COP209: Manage Cloud Costs and AI Spend with AWS Cost Management
Tuesday, Dec 1 | 2:30–3:30 PM PST | MGM Grand | Level 3 | Premier 318
This is our yearly new-feature announcement breakout. We cover how AI is helping teams manage cloud costs more effectively (“AI for FinOps”) and how to manage the cost of AI itself (“FinOps for AI”). AVIV Group joins to share their real-life learnings.
Speakers: Bowen Wang (Principal PM Outbound, AWS), Matt Berk (Principal TAM, AWS), and Jordi Espasa (FinOps Director, AVIV Group)

COP201: Accelerating Cost Optimization on AWS
Thursday, Dec 3 | 8:30–9:30 AM PST | Venetian | Level 2 | Ballroom F | Content Hub
Learn how to find and implement cost optimization opportunities sustainably, measure results, and distribute savings across your organization.
Speakers: Jimmy Yang (Principal PM, AWS) and Mary Nachimov (Sr. Technical PM, AWS)

Get Hands-On (Code Talk, Workshop, Builders’ Sessions)

Code Talk

COP403: Optimize AI Apps on Amazon Bedrock for Cost, Latency, and Control
Monday, Nov 30 | 11:30 AM–12:30 PM PST | Wynn/Encore | Upper Convention Promenade | Cristal 2
Repeat: Wednesday, Dec 2 | 8:30–9:30 AM PST | Wynn/Encore | Upper Convention Promenade | Cristal 2
A live coding session on advanced optimization techniques for production AI applications, such as prompt engineering, model selection, and context window management. See the direct cost impact of each design decision in AWS Billing and Cost Management.
Speakers: Andy Brown (Sr. Manager, FinOps, AWS) and Steph Gooch (Principal Tech Advocate, AWS)

Workshop

COP324: AI-Powered FinOps: Cloud Cost Optimization in Practice
Monday, Nov 30 | 8:30–10:30 AM PST | Wynn/Encore | Upper Convention Promenade | Cristal 7
Repeat: Wednesday, Dec 2 | 3:30–5:30 PM PST | MGM Grand | Level 1 | Grand 124
Embed FinOps as an operational discipline using AI-powered cost optimization. Get hands-on with automated optimizations, rightsizing, AI/ML and container workload cost allocation, multi-cloud reporting, and AI-powered spend analysis. Laptop required.
Speakers: Rupesh Lunia (Principal PM, AWS) and Enrico Bonaccorsi (Principal TAM, AWS)

Builders’ Sessions

COP311: FinOps for AI: Cost Allocation Strategies for Amazon Bedrock
Wednesday, Dec 2 | 4:30–5:30 PM PST | Wynn/Encore | Convention Promenade | Latour 7
Repeat: Thursday, Dec 3 | 10:30–11:30 AM PST | Wynn/Encore | Convention Promenade | Latour 7
Get hands-on with the latest cost management capabilities for Amazon Bedrock. Tag API calls for granular cost attribution, set budgets to control AI spend, and track costs as they happen. Then query new product metadata in CUR 2.0 and visualize cost-per-million-token trends in CUDOS.
Speakers: Yuriy Prykhodko (Principal Technologist, AWS), Judith Lehner (Principal TAM, AWS), Brenno Passanha (Sr. TAM, AWS), Ariel Fu (Sr. PM-Tech, AWS), and Eric Christensen (Sr. TAM, AWS)

COP312: Embed FinOps into Your CI/CD Pipelines
Monday, Nov 30 | 1:30–2:30 PM PST | Caesars Forum | Level 1 | Forum 120 | Content Hub
Repeat: Thursday, Dec 3 | 10:30–11:30 AM PST | Caesars Forum | Level 1 | Forum 120 | Content Hub
Build a working cost estimation gate directly into a CI/CD pipeline. Evaluate infrastructure cost impact at pull request time and enforce spend thresholds before deployment. Laptop required.
Speakers: Fredrik Tunvall (Sr. PM, AWS), Jenny Shen (SA, AWS), Travis James (Sr. Optimization SA, AWS), Hicham Lahlal (Sr. Cloud FinOps Architect, AWS), and Shubho Laga (Sr. TAM, EMEA)

Learn with Experts and Peers (Chalk Talks and Lightning Talk)

Chalk Talks

COP328: Building a Cost Governance Framework That Scales
Wednesday, Dec 2 | 4:30–5:30 PM PST | MGM Grand | Level 1 | Boulevard 165
Repeat: Thursday, Dec 3 | 1:00–2:00 PM PST | MGM Grand | Level 3 | Premier 311
Interactive discussions and whiteboard approaches for organizing cost data, setting budget guardrails, allocating spend, and building visibility across your organization, featuring the AWS FinOps Agent. Bring your current FinOps challenges.
Speakers: Adam Richter (Sr. Optimization SA, AWS) and Jason Wu (Sr. Technical PM, AWS)

COP329: Automate Savings with AWS Billing and Cost Management Services
Wednesday, Dec 2 | 4:30–5:30 PM PST | MGM Grand | Level 3 | Room 353
Repeat: Thursday, Dec 3 | 12:00–1:00 PM PST | Wynn/Encore | Convention Promenade | La Tache 2
Discuss approaches to align commitment purchases and rightsizing optimizations with your business targets, and how to build automation into your continuous cost optimization efforts.
Speakers: Savanna Jensen (Sr. Cloud FinOps Architect, AWS) and Haritha Chitalia (Cloud FinOps Architect, AWS)

Lightning Talk

COP348: Monitor and Optimize Costs for Amazon Bedrock
Monday, Nov 30 | 5:30–6:30 PM PST | Venetian | Level 2 | Hall B | Expo | Global Impact Theatre
A quick-hit session on practical tips for monitoring and optimizing Amazon Bedrock costs. A light yet essential way to kick-start your week.
Speakers: Adam Richter (Sr. Optimization SA, AWS)

Returning This Year: Visit the CFM Kiosk

We’re excited to bring back the dedicated CFM kiosk at re:Invent 2026! After a year away, it returns as your hub for drop-in questions, live product demos (including the AWS FinOps Agent and other new features), and face-to-face conversations with CFM product managers and experts all week. Bring your own cost challenges and explore solutions with our team. No reservation needed. Just stop by.
Kiosk host: Larry Im (Sr. SA, AWS), Koushik Das (Sr. TAM, AWS), Sean Falconer (Sr. SA, AWS). CFM product managers and field experts will be available on stand by for questions too.

Connect with the FinOps Community

The FinOps Foundation is joined by the Tokenomics Foundation and FOCUS team to continue its tradition of hosting a community event at re:Invent. This year, join them on Tuesday, December 1 at the Rock House for a morning-to-midday program. Start the day with the morning keynote watch party and connect with FinOps peers over a networking lunch. Sign up here.

Can’t make it? No worries. The FinOps Foundation team will join the AWS CFM team at the kiosk on Tuesday late afternoon to keep the conversation going on FOCUS, tokenomics, and the broader FinOps community initiatives.

Planning Tips

1. Register early. Sessions have limited capacity, and popular ones fill up fast
2. Build buffer time between sessions for venue transitions. The distances between Las Vegas hotels can be deceptive.
3. Consider session levels. The session ID tells you the level: COP209 is a 200-level overview, COP403 is a 400-level deep dive.
4. Check for repeats. Several sessions run twice this year, giving you a second chance if your first choice conflicts.
5. Watch out for Wednesday afternoon. COP311, COP328, and COP329 all start at the same time, and COP324 repeat overlaps all three. If you want more than one, use the Thursday repeats.

Schedule at a Glance

Session dates, times, and locations in this post are subject to change as we continue to optimize the schedule based on session popularity and venue capacity. Please check your re:Invent session catalog regularly for the most up-to-date information about your registered sessions.

We look forward to seeing you at re:Invent 2026!