AI advantages in ITSM have become more relevant as organisations modernise how they manage services and technology value. With the release of TBM Taxonomy 5.0, Service Management professionals now have a clearer way to identify, classify, and account for the costs and benefits of AI within ITSM. This post breaks down the real changes in TBM 5.0 and what they mean for your service delivery, reporting, and planning.
Why AI Needs Better Visibility in ITSM
The rise of AI in service operations is no longer speculative. Many ITSM teams are already using AI-driven tools to automate triage, improve incident handling, or deliver real-time insights. Without the right structure to track it, AI becomes hard to manage or justify.
TBM 5.0 addresses this by introducing new sub-towers specifically for AI, including compute, storage, models, and networks. These allow organisations to allocate AI costs accurately and tie them to value streams. This supports transparency and makes it easier to have informed conversations with Finance about where spend is going and why it matters.
What Has Changed from TBM 4.0?
TBM 4.0 gave us a solid foundation, but the model was becoming stretched by modern delivery patterns. The new version reflects current ITSM examples, from hybrid cloud to edge compute. Some of the key changes include:
- Cloud Services are now a standalone cost pool, separate from managed services or outside consulting.
- Software has been renamed to Software & SaaS, which clears up how subscription-based tools are accounted for
- Staffing now includes both internal employees and time-based contractors, while managed service labour is tracked elsewhere.
- AI-specific components are first-class items, no longer buried under generalised compute categories
- Risk & Compliance now has a tower of its own, reflecting the increasing importance of legal and data obligations.
These changes bring Service Management teams closer to real-time, relevant financial insights.
Anyone maintaining an ITSM service catalog will recognise the challenge of keeping service cost structures both accurate and meaningful. TBM 5.0 helps by refining how you tag services and associate them with underlying technologies.
How This Helps the ITSM Service Catalog
Anyone maintaining an ITSM service catalog will recognise the challenge of keeping service cost structures both accurate and meaningful. TBM 5.0 helps by refining how you tag services and associate them with underlying technologies.
AI-driven services no longer need to be shoehorned into legacy categories. You can now reflect their actual cost profile and relate them directly to business functions, partners, or external consumers. This makes service catalogues more accurate and far easier to explain to business stakeholders.
Connecting to the Broader Definition of Service
According to the ITIL definition of service, the aim is to deliver value to users without transferring ownership of specific risks or costs. TBM supports this by making services visible, measurable, and tied to actual resource use. With clearer links between spend, delivery, and consumption, Service Management teams can describe the value of what they provide in a way that resonates with Finance and the business.
Whether services are built on legacy systems, cloud platforms, or emerging AI tools, TBM 5.0 brings structure to how those services are modelled and reported. It doesn’t change how ITSM works, it improves how it’s communicated, benchmarked, and understood.
TBM 5.0 in Practice
You don’t need to adopt everything at once. Many organisations phase in the layers starting with Cost Pools and Technology Resource Towers before layering in the new Solutions and Consumer views. The model supports incremental use, so you can build it around your current maturity level.
For teams working on AI integration, cloud migration, or refining their ITSM service catalog, TBM 5.0 gives the framework to support these changes without reinventing existing structures.
FAQ Questions
What’s new in TBM 5.0 that helps track AI costs?
TBM 5.0 adds dedicated AI sub-towers for compute, storage, models, and networks. These let you separate AI costs from traditional infrastructure and connect them to business value more directly.
How does TBM 5.0 improve the ITSM service catalog?
It introduces better tagging and service-to-technology mapping. This helps you show how each service is built and delivered, making catalogues more accurate and easier to explain.
Why is AI visibility important in ITSM?
Without clear cost tracking, AI projects can be hard to justify. TBM 5.0 gives you a structured way to allocate AI spend and align it with outcomes, making value easier to demonstrate.
What is the ITIL definition of service and how does TBM relate to it?
ITIL defines a service as delivering value without transferring ownership of risk or cost. TBM complements this by showing how services are funded, delivered, and consumed using a shared financial and technical model.
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