Tech giants' dreams of AI price hikes meet resistance

Recent moves by Microsoft and Google show many business customers are balking at forking over a separate fee each month to give employees access to a work-friendly artificial intelligence chatbot. Both companies previously expressed high hopes that businesses would be willing to pay an extra $20 or $30 per employee per month for access to AI tools alongside everyday productivity apps. For business leaders, the cost-benefit analysis for this kind of AI deployment is still tricky. You don't need to get a lot of extra productivity per worker to justify an additional $30 a month, considering how much the average worker is paid. On the other hand, without knowing for certain the benefits, $30 per employee per month is a significant expense—in the millions of dollars a year for companies with tens of thousands of employees