AI that lowers its own bill.

AKKA OPTIMIZE
Adapt Evaluate Serve
production feedback
Cut token costs up to 80% with SLMs.
scroll to explore
The problem
Token spend is the largest and fastest-growing line item.
$6M–$12M of a mid-sized enterprise’s 3-year agentic TCO — bigger than infrastructure.
Agents multiply calls: plans, retries, tool loops, reasoning tokens, stuffed context windows.
AI spend as agent fleets grow
5 15 40 100 TOKEN SPEND TOKENS ON AKKA
Agents in production →
Most of that traffic is narrow, repetitive, and verifiable, such as extraction, classification, summarization, SQL, routing, moderation. A small model specialized on one task beats a frontier API on that task.
Content moderation — production score Google DeepMind Gemmaverse case study · 23M-subscriber telco
Gemma 3 4B tuned
0.80
Claude Sonnet 3.7
0.77
GPT-4o
0.76
Enterprise RAG — head-to-head preference published enterprise result
RL-tuned 8B
51%
GPT-4o
29%
Tie
20%
A 4B open-weight model — up to 12× lower inference cost. The model does less work, enabling more inference per GPU.
The economics
The savings potential.
A 2,000-developer org spends about $60M a year on frontier agent tokens. Specialized SLMs cut that to ~$11M — 81% saved — and drop cost per verified task nearly 80% while quality rises, with break-even in roughly eight days.
Baseline
annual spend = developers × $ / dev·month × 12
$60.0Mper year · the annual bill
$2,500per developer · month (assumed)
2,000developers
cost drivers: GPT-5.5 · Codex (⅔) + Opus 4.8 · Claude Code (⅓)
Price risk
ONE DEVELOPER · 3 MONTHS · 57.9B TOKENS metered at frontier API GPT-5.6 Sol $170K Fable 5 $150K ≈ $320K · peak days ~$10K billed on subsidized seats $1,300 ~99.6% how far frontier API prices must fall to match subscriptions
Unit cost
cost/task = price/tok × tok/task 1.0 0 1.00 leased 0.30 self-provide 0.17 adapted × 0.30 price/tok · × 0.55 tok/task
Savings from SLMs
$60.0M leased today $11.2M serve $10.2M train $1.0M self-provide $48.8M saved · 81% your GPUs: capex · managed inference: metered opex
Break-even
time (days) → leased self-provided fixed $1.0M crossover ≈ 8 days cost / verified task $0.0152 $0.0031 −80% · +2 pts quality 3,900 → 760 tokens / task · fewer tokens is why the cost falls
leased, fixed $1.0Mcrossover ≈ 8 days
self-provided crosses leased at ≈ 8 days
cost / verified task
$0.0152$0.0031
−80% · +2 pts quality
3,900 → 760 tokens / task · fewer tokens is why the cost falls
Sources: OpenAI & Anthropic API pricing — GPT-5.5 $5/$30, Opus 4.8 $5/$25, GPT-5.6 Sol $5/$30, Claude Fable 5 $10/$50 per 1M tokens (Jun–Jul 2026) · Fireworks serverless & fine-tuning pricing · OpenRouter, "Open Weight Models that Matter," Jun 2026. Baseline: 2,000 developers × $2,500/dev·month (assumed effective rate) = $60.0M/yr. Price risk: one developer, 3 months = 57.9B tokens, billed ≈$1,300 on subsidized seats vs ≈$320K metered at today's frontier (≈190–250×).
The product
Target, grade, train, prove, promote — continuously.
Akka Optimize continuously analyzes live AI traffic and AI logs to identify SLM candidates that can be trained within the same environment.
Target
find the agents doing SLM-shaped work
Grade
continuous evaluations on live traffic
Train
RL on your traffic, your evals as grader
Prove
shadow-test in staging: quality holds, tokens ↓
Promote
canary → fleet, automatic rollback
Same tasks
up to 80% fewer tokens
Production feedback Promoted models keep getting graded — the optimization loop keeps running.
How it works
Identify new SLM candidates.
The targeting engine continuously scores every agent on task narrowness, traffic volume, outcome verifiability, token spend, and quality headroom creating a ranked plan with projected savings.
Agent Volume / mo Task shape Verifiable Spend / mo SLM fit Projected savings
claims-extractor 4.1M narrow / repeat ✓ schema $58K 0.94 −$46K/mo
support-summarizer 2.7M narrow / repeat ✓ judge $34K 0.91 −$25K/mo
sql-assistant 0.9M narrow ✓ executes $22K 0.88 −$18K/mo
research-planner 0.1M open-ended $12K 0.31 keep frontier
Projected fleet savings −$89K/mo
Evaluations run in the same runtime as your agents
Evaluations grade each targeted agent’s traffic as it runs. When an outcome can be checked directly — the SQL executes, the JSON validates — a deterministic evaluation scores it. When it can’t, an LLM judge scores it, and humans review where policy requires. Every score is recorded with the tokens the interaction consumed. The same evaluations grade production traffic, training runs, and staging tests.
Live traffic
Evaluation
Governance observation
the audit trail
Training reward
the RL signal
Promotion gate
the staging verdict
How it works
Production traffic trains your model, then staging proves it holds.
An open-weights base (4–12B) is tuned with reinforcement learning against your interaction data — your evaluations are the grader. Training runs on GPUs in your cloud account — in-VPC, sovereign, air-gapped where required — or with Fireworks.ai, a third-party inference provider. The result is a specialized SLM — a ~50MB adapter. You own the weights.
live traffic Incumbent frontier API quality 0.87 · 100% tokens Candidate your SLM quality 0.89 · 21% tokens GATE quality ≥ baseline  ✓ token drop ≥ target  ✓ Promote canary → fleet Do not promote if no improvement
live traffic
Incumbent
frontier API
quality 0.87 · 100% tokens
Candidate
your SLM
quality 0.89 · 21% tokens
GATE
quality ≥ baseline  ✓
token drop ≥ target  ✓
Promote
canary → fleet
Do not promote if no improvement
Every promotion ships with an auto-generated before/after benchmark — computed by your evaluations, on your traffic, stored on the audit record.
After promotion, the optimization loop keeps grading. Drift in traffic or upstream models registers in eval scores first; retraining triggers automatically; a new candidate re-enters staging. A drop in quality triggers instant rollback to the incumbent.
The optimization loop runs inside your Improvement Policy: what it optimizes toward, how far it may tune, what it may never touch. Each decision is recorded in an interaction log.
Architecture
Route, serve, train, and govern.
Akka Optimize runs on a single-tenant install of the Akka Agentic AI Platform. It has a private data link to your environment. Requests are routed and served to the platform, which trains and serves them on the same compute.
CLIENT ENVIRONMENT HARNESSES Cursor Claude Code Codex GitHub Copilot CONNECTORS BYO-agent pluginendpoint config · trace capturePLUGIN Log forwarderproduction logs → AI GatewayLOGS Repo & CI connectioncodebases · sandbox RL deploysREPO AKKA MANAGED PLANE · SINGLE TENANT · SOVEREIGN Governance consent · policy · RBAC · audit · checks POLICY Scorecards & dashboards quality · velocity · cost · autonomy SCORECARD AI Gateway PROXY OpenAI-compatible ingress tier select · adapter hot-swap · cache canary · shadow · rollback Frontier fallback TEACHER GPT-5.5 · Opus 4.8 external API Continuous training Trace storeagent traces Scrub & curatePII · secrets Judges & evalsreward models RL envssuites · sandbox Synthetic datateacher · RLVR SFT · DPO · RLLoRA out · held for eval INFRASTRUCTURE · COMPUTE Inference endpoints · elastic auto-scale · base + adapters SERVING GLM-5adapted · high DeepSeek V4 Proadapted · high Kimi K2adapted · economy adapters specialize by domain — code review · deploy · security · SRE SPECIALISTS Your GPUsvLLM serving + verl training · in your VPCsovereign · air-gapped · you own the weightsYou Serve FireworksFireworks serving + Fireworks tuning · their cloudmanaged · open-weight · you own the adaptersThey Serve serve · route · canary · shadow serves rollouts adapter traces

solid yellow = serving / request flow

grey dashed = training / data flow

CLIENT ENVIRONMENT
HARNESSES
Cursor
Claude Code
Codex
GitHub Copilot
CONNECTORS
BYO-agent plugin
endpoint config · trace capture
Log forwarder
production logs → AI Gateway
Repo & CI connection
codebases · sandbox RL deploys
AKKA MANAGED PLANE · SINGLE TENANT · SOVEREIGN
Governance
consent · policy · RBAC · audit · checks
Scorecards & dashboards
quality · velocity · cost · autonomy
AI Gateway
OpenAI-compatible ingress · tier select · adapter hot-swap · cache · canary · shadow · rollback
Frontier fallback
GPT-5.5 · Opus 4.8 · external API
CONTINUOUS TRAINING
Trace store → Scrub & curate → Judges & evals → RL envs → Synthetic data → SFT · DPO · RL
agent traces · PII/secrets scrub · reward models · suites/sandbox · teacher/RLVR · LoRA out
INFRASTRUCTURE · COMPUTE
Inference
endpoints · elastic auto-scale · base + adapters
GLM-5 · DeepSeek V4 Pro · Kimi K2
adapted — code review · deploy · security · SRE
Your GPUs
vLLM serving + verl training · in your VPC · sovereign · air-gapped · you own the weights
Fireworks
Fireworks serving + tuning · their cloud · managed · you own the adapters
Cost governance
Visibility, control and accountability.
Continuously attribute every dollar to an owner, track savings against quality, and identify opportunities to improve.

Budget owner

Am I within budget — and is the saving real?

Spend this period
$48.2Kof $60K cap
projected $57.1K at period end · within cap
Realized saving
$181K
vs pinned frontier
counterfactual · 79% below
Cost per task
$0.0031
▼ 68% vs 90d · per task
Where the spend sits
claims-extract$19.1K
code-review$11.4K
deploy-agent$7.2K
all others$10.5K
Rollback exposure
71%of traffic on SLMs
if every adapter reverted to frontier tomorrow,
run rate goes $12K/mo → $47K/mo
Waiting on you
2 open
Spending is on track to reach $63.1K against a $60K cap
open 6 days · at the cap the throttle engages and ~12% of requests degrade
Approve the overspendLet it throttle
code-review went over its cost-per-task ceiling 14 times this week
open 2 days · $0.0041 against a $0.0035 ceiling
Raise its ceilingMove it to a cheaper tier

AI owner

What is worth training next — and is what I promoted still holding?

Candidate pipeline · 90d
observed47
admitted12
in training3
in ladder2
promoted9
Why 35 were not admitted
ungradeable19
volume11
consent5
19 agents become eligible once a deterministic
grader exists for their task shape
Promoted models — how quality has moved
Agentfrontier → proved → now$/taskState
claims-extract v50.93 → 0.96 → 0.96$0.0028holding
code-review v30.91 → 0.94 → 0.89$0.0041drifting
deploy-agent v20.88 → 0.92 → 0.92$0.0035holding
code-review still beats the model it replaced, but answers
worse than when it was approved — so S3 re-opens T1
Waiting on you
2 open
claims-extract v6 passed all four steps, and this agent is one where a mistake would be costly
open 9 days · holding $1,240 / mo · sitting at 5% of traffic
Promote to the fleetHold at canary
code-review is answering worse than it did when you approved it, though still better than the model it replaced
open 3 days · scored 0.94 when approved, 0.89 now · holding $890 / mo
Train it againReturn it to frontier

System behavior

Is the optimization loop running — and is it failing safe when it fails?

Loop throughput · 30d
Training runs started → completed12 → 9
Promotions to fleet6
Rollbacks1
Candidates retired at a check4
Evaluation ladder — pass rate per rung
offline eval14/19
shadow9/14
canary7/9
each rung that rejects a candidate stops a
regression before it reaches the fleet
Serving health
Latency p50 / p95340ms / 1.2s
Frontier fallback rate2.1% ▲
Error rate0.02%
Policy vetoes · scrub failures14 · 0
GPU allocation
train 38%serve 54%idle 8%
the same GPUs do both — T2 reserves its share within
the serving tier's latency budget
Waiting on you
2 open
sre-triage has no rule for when an answer is too weak to send, so it never escalates
open 7 days · it fails open rather than falling back to the frontier
Set the ruleLeave it off
Whether the claims-v2 data class may be trained on, not only logged
open 2 days · 19 agents cannot be scored until it is answered · $3,100 / mo
Clear it for trainingKeep it audit-only

An integrated platform.

Akka’s offerings all run within the same runtime and cloud stack in order to produce a single evidence record and a consistent governance model.
Akka Agentic AI Platform
Deliver& Govern
Akka Specify
specs·generation·modernization
Akka Verify
evaluations·guardrails·policies·evidence
Models& Compute
Akka Optimize
SLMs·training·grading·routing

AI that lowers its own bill.

AKKA OPTIMIZE
The 90-day Optimization Assessment
Install
days 1–30
deploy in your VPC · pass InfoSec · connect trace sources
Observe
days 31–60
targeting scores live traffic · ranked plan + quality baselines
Witness
days 61–90
first SLM trained, staged, shadow-tested · before/after benchmark on your traffic
Start the assessment →