The Total Economic Impact™ Of Writer
Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Writer
A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study Commissioned By Writer, April 2025
Enterprises struggle to build, scale, and supervise AI agents. The need for high-quality outputs and reliable performance requires a purpose-built foundation to reshape workflows, foster collaboration between business and IT, and establish a coherent strategy for enterprisewide deployment. Across the business, employees are plagued with mundane, repetitive tasks. The most productive use cases for agentic AI are human-centric, dynamic, and embedded in mission-critical processes.1 These go beyond content generation and knowledge retrieval to automate work and decisions and to enable enterprises to reinvent core operations.
Writer is a full-stack platform for enterprises to reinvent core operations with agentic AI, providing a complete set of integrated capabilities to build, activate, and supervise AI agents. Writer’s suite of development tools includes Palmyra — Writer’s family of large language models (LLMs) — alongside its graph-based retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and customizable AI guardrails.
Writer commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying its AI platform.2 The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Writer on their organizations.
Return on investment (ROI)
333%
Net present value (NPV)
$12.02M
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed six decision-makers with experience using Writer. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization.
Interviewees said that prior to using Writer, their organizations struggled with clumsy processes for publishing content, executing campaigns, and launching products. Style and brand standards were difficult to uphold across various assets, which necessitated multiple rounds of review and caused delays. Manual, repetitive tasks like updating or retiring out-of-date content, migrating blogs, and transcribing audio or video files consumed valuable time and resources, leading to high labor costs associated with content creation and management. The need for meticulous fact-checking, especially in highly regulated industries, further consumed resources. Many organizations found themselves relying on external agencies, which increased expenses. Additionally, the development of AI tools with prior, alternative solutions required substantial investment in developer resources and posed security risks, creating a challenging environment for any of the interviewees striving to maintain a competitive edge.
After the investment in Writer, the interviewees experienced easy setup and quick time to value, which allowed interviewees to respond swiftly to market demands. Writer empowered their teams to rapidly produce content aligned to brand identity, as well as build and scale as their organizations grew and objectives evolved. Interviewees noted that the strong product and engineering teams at Writer provided confidence in the solution's long-term reliability and continuous improvement.
Key results from the investment include labor efficiencies from improved time to market, agency cost avoidance, improved compliance and brand standards, faster onboarding, and legacy environment savings.
Key Findings
Quantified benefits. Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:
- Improved labor efficiencies for marketing team members by 200%. The composite organization reduces the time required to produce first drafts of articles and press releases, review and refresh older content, generate captions, compile educational material for its internal team and customers, launch new product pages, write video scripts, and complete other marketing and communications tasks. Over three years, the labor efficiency is worth $10 million to the composite organization.
- Reduced agency scope by 50%. With Writer, the composite organization brings projects in-house that were previously assigned to agencies, delivering on those projects more quickly. Over three years, reduction in agency scope is worth $5 million to the composite organization.
- Reduced review time for stakeholders and subject matter experts by 85%. Writer optimizes workflows for both content creators and reviewers by providing a real-time style guide, running compliance checks, flagging noncompliant terms, and providing suggestions, which refines the review process while reducing review time. Over three years, time saved for reviewers due to improved compliance and adherence to brand standards is worth $100,000 to the composite organization.
- Accelerated onboarding of new hires by 65%. By reducing the time needed to gain knowledge about how to execute workflows, Writer enables new hires to ramp up faster, shaving two weeks off the previous three-week onboarding process. Over three years, faster onboarding is worth $56,000 to the composite organization.
- Saved one FTE due to reduction in legacy system maintenance. After switching to Writer, the composite organization reduces licensing costs for other generative AI tools and saves one FTE who had previously managed a portion of the tools, enabling the FTE to focus on higher-priority projects and product launches. Over three years, legacy environment savings are worth $492,000 to the composite organization.
Unquantified benefits. Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:
- Revenue from decreased time to market. The ability to quickly produce content and launch campaigns enables timely responses to customer needs and market changes, resulting in additional incremental revenue for the composite organization.
- Increased customer satisfaction and use of services and offerings. Writer empowers teams to maintain brand standards and consistency, which enhances brand reputation and fosters customer trust. Increased customer awareness of products and services drives engagement, creating higher utilization of company offerings.
- Improved security and compliance. By using Writer’s family of Palmyra LLMs, the composite organization is better positioned to assure customers that their data is secure and used responsibly.
Costs. Three-year, risk-adjusted PV costs for the composite organization include:
- Subscription costs. The composite organization incurs subscription costs for Writer based on professional services used, the creation of custom agents, and its number of users. Over three years, the composite pays $1.7 million in subscription costs.
- Implementation costs. An AI strategy lead, project managers, department leads and subject matter experts, and IT and security team members spend 10-25% of their time per year as the composite organization expands its use of Writer and creates additional custom agents. Over three years and 36 custom agents, the composite pays $1.8 million in implementation costs.
- Training and discovery. New users of Writer train for 1.5 hours to onboard, with ongoing trainings per quarter as use cases expand and evolve. Over three years, the composite pays $68,000 in training costs.
The representative interviews and financial analysis found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $15.63 million over three years versus costs of $3.61 million, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $12.02 million and an ROI of 333%.
Key Statistics
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Return on investment (ROI)
333%
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Benefits PV
$15.63M
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Net present value (NPV)
$12.02M
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Payback
<6 months
Benefits (Three-Year)
Labor efficiencies from improved time to market Agency cost avoidance Improved compliance and brand standards Faster onboarding Legacy environment savings
TEI Framework And Methodology
From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a Total Economic Impact™ framework for those organizations considering an investment in Writer.
The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the impact that Writer can have on an organization.
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Due Diligence
Interviewed Writer stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data relative to Writer.
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Interviews
Interviewed six people at organizations using Writer to obtain data about costs, benefits, and risks.
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Composite Organization
Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ organizations.
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Financial Model Framework
Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees.
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Case Study
Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling the investment impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophistication of ROI analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology provides a complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.
Disclosures
Readers should be aware of the following:
This study is commissioned by Writer and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.
Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided in the study to determine the appropriateness of an investment in Writer.
Writer reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.
Writer provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.
Consulting Team:
Nahida Nisa
Drivers leading to the Writer investment
Interviews
| Role | Industry | Employees | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vice president of digital content strategy and operations | Financial services | 8,400 | $43 million |
| Staff writer | Financial services | 3,700 | $1 billion |
| Senior manager of artificial intelligence | Software | 72,000 | $35 billion |
| Brand marketing director | Professional services | 40,000 employees and partners | $36 billion |
| Senior marketing writer and team lead | Software | 6,000 | $1 billion |
| Senior vice president of product management and innovation | Healthcare | 200 | Private |
Key Challenges
Prior to Writer, interviewees faced myriad challenges that hindered efficiency, including time-consuming review processes to maintain a coherent brand voice. The complexity of managing large volumes of content across multiple channels exacerbated this endeavor. Limited resources and high costs further strained their organizations’ ability to implement effective solutions.
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Time-consuming content creation and manual review processes. Before adopting Writer, interviewees faced lengthy and repetitive content creation and review processes, which slowed their time to market.
The vice president of digital content strategy and operations in the financial services industry mentioned that their content creation process involved multiple rounds of review, which was time-consuming: “We suffered from multiple-rounds-of-review syndrome. So content gets written, and then it must go back to brand for review, and then once it’s changed, it has to go back to the subject matter expert to make sure the brand changes were OK. Then it goes to marketing review and compliance, and you might have to change and do all of that over again.”
Managing and updating large volumes of content was time-consuming. The same vice president discussed the challenge of overseeing content across multiple channels: “Content managers were having to update and get approvals on the same thing across multiple channels. It’s like you fix it in one place, and maybe there’s a 24-hour lag before you fix it somewhere else.”
The senior vice president of product management and innovation in the healthcare industry noted that the manual processes used to manage content prior to Writer were not scalable and that their organization needed to automate tasks to improve efficiency.
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Inconsistent brand voice and issues with compliance. Each interviewee described the difficult and error-prone endeavor of maintaining a consistent brand voice and compliance across all content, but this was particularly emphasized by interviewees in financial services and healthcare — both highly regulated industries.
The vice president of digital content strategy and operations in the financial services industry highlighted the importance of maintaining a consistent brand voice and compliance: “We could get fined if we use the word ‘advisor’ incorrectly versus ‘financial professional.’ We needed to be able to help reduce risk on that and also reduce brand and compliance review time, so we could really speed up time to market.”
The staff writer in financial services also remarked on the level of sensitivity in the industry. They said, “We have to be very careful with what we say.”
The senior vice president of product management and innovation in the healthcare industry highlighted that their organization faced issues with tools that lacked medical domain expertise, which led to concerns about the accuracy and appropriateness of the content generated. The interviewee stated: “There was also some concern about [other AI tools] not having great medical domain expertise, and so the tools that we were building around were trained on all of the internet. That’s okay for some use cases, but we’re in medicine.”
- Limited resources, high costs, and inability to scale when building and managing AI. Interviewees also experienced challenges with fine-tuning models on their company data. The senior vice president of product management and innovation in the healthcare industry said: “We’re a small company. We’re scrappy. We just weren’t resourced to build the kind of custom AI that would benefit us.” Despite investing a year in fine-tuning models themselves, they were unable to get to production-level accuracy and performance. Instead, they switched to the Writer platform and used its medical model, Palmyra Med, to implement new AI agents for benefits navigation and clinical documentation in less than six months. The benefits navigation agent automates work that physicians had to do manually: matching healthcare benefits to each patient's health situation and insurance coverage. The agent automatically reviews the chat history/transcript from each patient visit and provides personalized health benefit recommendations covered by the patient’s plan. Those recommendations are then presented to the physician, who can decide whether or not to present them to the patient.
Solution Requirements/Investment Objectives
The interviewees’ organizations searched for a solution that could:
- Automate manual processes and shift productivity to focus on higher-value tasks.
- Maintain domain expertise.
- Provide data security.
- Ensure a consistent brand voice and compliance.
- Manage large volumes of content with reduced costs and improved efficiency.
- Scale without requiring extensive internal resources.
- Operate on multimodal inputs.
Composite Organization
Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a composite company, and an ROI analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected. The composite organization is representative of the interviewees’ organizations, and it is used to present the aggregate financial analysis in the next section. The composite organization has the following characteristics:
Description of composite. The $35 billion organization is headquartered in the United States and has 25,000 employees and 250 licenses to use Writer across marketing, legal, and human resources.
Deployment characteristics. The composite organization launches a total of six products and custom agents in the initial period, followed by 10 additional use cases and custom agents per year as the adoption of Writer expands.
Quantified benefit data as applied to the composite
Total Benefits
| Ref. | Benefit | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atr | Labor efficiencies from improved time to market | $1,530,000 | $3,442,500 | $7,650,000 | $12,622,500 | $9,983,509 |
| Btr | Agency cost avoidance | $1,800,000 | $2,025,000 | $2,250,000 | $6,075,000 | $5,000,376 |
| Ctr | Improved compliance and brand standards | $16,380 | $39,926 | $69,615 | $125,921 | $100,191 |
| Dtr | Faster onboarding | $10,614 | $25,209 | $34,496 | $70,319 | $56,401 |
| Etr | Legacy environment savings | $198,000 | $198,000 | $198,000 | $594,000 | $492,397 |
| Total benefits (risk-adjusted) | $3,554,994 | $5,730,635 | $10,202,111 | $19,487,741 | $15,632,874 | |
Labor Efficiencies From Improved Time To Market
Evidence and data. Depending on deployment, users of Writer could see pockets of high ROI, particularly with labor efficiencies. Interviewees described that the most notable benefits with Writer included reduced time for content creation, expedited task completion, and enhanced overall performance. This compressed timeline allowed teams to allocate more attention to strategic initiatives.
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The staff writer in the financial services industry described how the task of transcribing quotes, which took the team 3 hours before Writer, now takes 10 minutes with Writer. Producing captions, which took the team an hour prior to Writer, now takes 20 minutes with Writer.
The interviewee added: “The biggest savings would be using Writer on the content team. What previously took us 22 hours has been cut down to 6 hours. That’s among all of us, about 90 times a month, and might be even more now.” The team also expedited the migration and updating of older data and content, a project that had been stalled for two years, significantly reducing the time required.
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Several interviewees described potential financial impacts to producing high-quality content more quickly. The vice president of digital content strategy and operations in the financial services industry noted, “The faster you get marketing campaign content to market, the faster you can get leads.” They added, “If we had an editor who reviewed 10,000 words a day and charged $35 an hour at 8 hours per day, this would have cost our organization about $290,696 and would have taken the editor 1,039 days to complete.”
One notable benefit was the ability to compose content conveying the same information in different, interesting ways to communicate the message. The same vice president asked: “How many ways can you say the same thing? Well, Writer can say it a hundred ways in 3 seconds without compromising quality.” Previously, content writers strained to achieve this result.
- The senior manager of artificial intelligence at the software company described that high-priority cases, such as scriptwriting, used to take days but are now down to hours. The interviewee experienced a similar impact with articles: “Getting the first draft of SEO articles can take just minutes with Writer, where it took days before. We’re seeing that some of the folks on our high-impact teams get up to 8 hours a week back.”
- The brand marketing director in professional services said that their organization saved a total of 50,000 hours each month for content development by using Writer.
- The senior marketing writer and team lead in the software industry said: “We’re constantly creating content for different industries and audiences, and Writer has been a huge help getting messaging and positioning together for those different groups. We have been able to create documentation that’s allowed us to start messaging our technology toward different groups faster, more effectively, [and] more consistently, thanks to having Writer.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- Twenty marketing team members use Writer for creative content development, corporate communications, social media posts, blog posts, content auditing, and other marketing, sales, market education, and campaign-related projects in Year 1. As use cases expand, this increases to 30 team members in Year 2, then 50 in Year 3 due to accelerated adoption.
- The team experiences 100% efficiency in Year 1, 150% in Year 2, and 200% in Year 3.
- The average fully burdened annual salary for a marketing team member is $85,000.
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences, and the benefit will vary based on the following variables:
- The size of the marketing team and the pace at which it adopts Writer.
- The expansion, scale, and innovation of its use cases due to organizational growth and objectives.
- The processes to ensure content accuracy in place, particularly for organizations in highly regulated industries.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of nearly $10.0 million.
Labor Efficiencies From Improved Time To Market
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Marketing team members using Writer for creative content development; corporate communications; social media posts; blog posts; content auditing; and other marketing, sales, market education, and campaign-related projects | Composite | 20 | 30 | 50 | |
| A2 | Improved efficiency in marketing team with Writer | Interviews | 100% | 150% | 200% | |
| A3 | Average annual burdened salary | Composite | $85,000 | $85,000 | $85,000 | |
| At | Labor efficiencies from improved time to market | A1*A2*A3 | $1,700,000 | $3,825,000 | $8,500,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓10% | |||||
| Atr | Labor efficiencies from improved time to market (risk-adjusted) | $1,530,000 | $3,442,500 | $7,650,000 | ||
| Three-year total: $12,622,500 | Three-year present value: $9,983,509 | |||||
Agency Cost Avoidance
Evidence and data. In addition to internal labor efficiencies, interviewees noted reduced reliance on external agencies following the adoption of Writer.
- The senior manager of artificial intelligence in the software industry described significant savings on agency costs and reduction in agency scope.
- The vice president of digital content strategy and operations in the financial services industry described a project that the team would have otherwise needed to assign to an agency had it not been for Writer: “If you had an agency publishing 1,000 words a day, charging $280 per 1,000 words published, 1,465,000 words would have cost our organization about $407,680 and would have taken the agency nearly four years. Instead, we were able to take it in-house because we could do it faster.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The average agency cost per project for the composite organization is $1,000,000.
- The composite organization outsources five projects per year to an agency.
- Due to Writer, it reduces its agency spend by 40% in Year 1, 45% in Year 2, and 50% in Year 3.
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences, and the benefit will vary based on the following variables:
- The organization’s prior agency spend and the number of projects it outsources prior to using Writer.
- The scope of the organization’s adoption of Writer.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of just over $5.0 million.
Agency Cost Avoidance
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | Average agency cost per project without Writer | Interviews | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | |
| B2 | Projects per year | Composite | 5 | 5 | 5 | |
| B3 | Reduced agency scope with Writer | Interviews | 40% | 45% | 50% | |
| Bt | Agency cost avoidance | B1*B2*B3 | $2,000,000 | $2,250,000 | $2,500,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓10% | |||||
| Btr | Agency cost avoidance (risk-adjusted) | $1,800,000 | $2,025,000 | $2,250,000 | ||
| Three-year total: $6,075,000 | Three-year present value: $5,000,376 | |||||
Improved Compliance And Brand Standards
Evidence and data. Interviewees described that the adoption of Writer significantly optimized workflows by incorporating additional steps to ensure adherence to brand standards and quality, while still increasing the speed of output. These steps were previously unattainable due to time and resource constraints. The enhanced processes not only streamlined content production but also fostered a culture of continuous learning, enabling teams to refine their writing in real time and align with the company’s strategic objectives. Writer flags noncompliant terms and provides suggestions for corrections. Interviewees also described building compliance checks into the tool, reducing the risk of noncompliant content being published. This has streamlined the review process and reduced the number of compliance flags.
- Interviewees remarked that while labor efficiencies constituted the majority of the return on investment they experienced with Writer, this metric alone didn’t speak to the true value brought to the brand. The senior marketing writer and team lead in the software industry said: “I think the faster turnaround time is a bit reductive of the true benefit. Yes, that helps us get stuff done faster, but that also helps us do more with that time not spent on other tasks. Writer has allowed everyone to scale and improve upon skills that are uniquely human, like creativity and strategic thinking. We’ve been able to add important steps to our process that weren’t there before because we didn’t have time or resources for them. Steps related to messaging and positioning were frequently skipped because people felt like we didn’t have the time or resources.” With the time savings the interviewee’s team saw day-to-day for repetitive tasks, the organization was able to shift focus. The interviewee continued: “We had time to be strategic, thoughtful, and creative with our messaging and positioning documentation. Now, that higher standard of work is met for every single marketing effort. We experienced growth and process improvements that really elevated our brand standards overall due to time savings on the lower production level.”
- The vice president of digital content strategy and operations in financial services remarked on the learning experiences that emerged for the content team from using Writer: “We streamlined our reviews with Writer. If you can start baking in suggestions and set brand, tone of voice, and style reviews in the tool to correct someone as they’re writing, then sure, it reduces the number of rounds of reviews. But more importantly, it also teaches the composer, in real time, what they should be doing and how to change their writing in the future to comply with our brand standards, which then also help speed up the process.”
- The staff writer in the financial services industry noted that Writer helped reduce the time for legal approvals from seven days to same-day approvals by flagging terms and providing warnings, saving time for the legal team and removing bottlenecks for content.
- The senior manager of artificial intelligence in the software industry described that with Writer, 1.4 billion words were reviewed for brand standards: “That is huge. That means that we, at a company level, are speaking in our own authentic voice with the latest messaging. We sound like one person. That is considerably hard for a huge company to achieve, especially as we innovate quickly with new products. We not only get everyone on the same page, but we also apply best practices to product messaging. We’re using Writer to teach us how to write better, which is a whole other level of AI that I don’t think people have really thought through yet.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The composite organization has two FTEs in Year 1, three in Year 2, and f in Year 3 to act as stakeholders and subject matter experts to review content as the company grows and expands the areas for which content is produced.
- These roles previously spent 35% of their time reviewing content for compliance and brand standards. That time is reduced by 40% in Year 1, 65% in Year 2, and 85% in Year 3 as Writer enables content creators to learn and produce higher-quality and more accurate content.
- The average fully burdened annual salary of a subject matter expert is $130,000.
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences, and the benefit will vary based on the following variables:
- The number of reviewers and subject matter experts needed to evaluate content in the composite organization’s prior state.
- The scope of the organization’s adoption of Writer and the increase of projects it undertakes with Writer.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of more than $100,000.
Improved Compliance And Brand Standards
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Legal, HR, and other subject matter expert FTEs using Writer | Composite | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| C2 | Percentage of time reviewing content to approve or flag | Composite | 35% | 35% | 35% | |
| C3 | Reduction in review time as teams use Writer for content | Interviews | 40% | 65% | 85% | |
| C4 | Average fully burdened annual salary for a subject matter expert | Composite | $130,000 | $130,000 | $130,000 | |
| C5 | Productivity recapture | TEI methodology | 50% | 50% | 50% | |
| Ct | Improved compliance and brand standards | C1*C2*C3*C4*C5 | $18,200 | $44,363 | $77,350 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓10% | |||||
| Ctr | Improved compliance and brand standards (risk-adjusted) | $16,380 | $39,926 | $69,615 | ||
| Three-year total: $125,921 | Three-year present value: $100,191 | |||||
Faster Onboarding
Evidence and data. Interviewees described how providing a central tool like Writer to learn about brand, style, content, and projects significantly reduced the time required for new hires to become productive, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks and build relationships during their first weeks at the company.
- The vice president of digital content strategy and operations in the financial services industry emphasized the importance refreshing older content, especially for new hires: “Our press releases are relatively repeatable, but a new join would find writing the press releases to be very particular. They’re tedious to write. It might typically have taken somebody 2 to 3 hours to sit down and try and figure out a new way to say something very similar. It now takes 15 minutes, and new hires can spend more time focusing on relationships with reporters or coming up with a new pitch.”
- The staff writer in the financial services industry noted that new employees are up to speed within a week, versus two to three weeks prior to Writer.
- The senior marketing writer and team lead in the software industry described the onboarding of a new employee that was significantly accelerated due to Writer. They said, “I would say she was fully onboarded and working at capacity within two months, and historically, it takes our organization over six months to get similar roles fully onboarded.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- Across various departments, the composite organization has 40 users of Writer in Year 1, 95 in Year 2, and 130 in Year 3. Seventy-five percent of users interact with Writer daily.
- Eighteen percent of users are new hires, who would have taken 21 days to onboard prior to Writer. With Writer, onboarding is reduced by 65%, saving 14 days.
- The average fully burdened hourly rate of a new employee is $40. During the onboarding ramp, productivity is at 50% of full capacity.
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences, and the benefit will vary based on the following variables:
- The number of users and variety of roles interacting with Writer.
- The turnover rate and rate of new hiring at the organization.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of more than $56,000.
Faster Onboarding
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | Writer users | Composite | 40 | 95 | 130 | |
| D2 | Percentage of users interacting with Writer daily (marketing, financial advisors, and other subject matter experts) | Composite | 75% | 75% | 75% | |
| D3 | Percentage of Writer users who are new hires | Composite | 18% | 18% | 18% | |
| D4 | New hires onboarding onto team | D1*D3 | 7 | 17 | 23 | |
| D5 | Days to onboard prior to Writer | Interviews | 21 | 21 | 21 | |
| D6 | Acceleration in onboarding of new hires | Interviews | 65% | 65% | 65% | |
| D7 | Days saved per new employee onboarded | D5*D6 | 14 | 14 | 14 | |
| D8 | Fully burdened hourly rate for a new employee | Composite | $40 | $40 | $40 | |
| D9 | Productivity of new hire during ramp | TEI standard | 50% | 50% | 50% | |
| Dt | Faster onboarding | D2*D4*D7*D8*D9*8 | $11,794 | $28,010 | $38,329 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓10% | |||||
| Dtr | Faster onboarding (risk-adjusted) | $10,614 | $25,209 | $34,496 | ||
| Three-year total: $70,319 | Three-year present value: $56,401 | |||||
Legacy Environment Savings
Evidence and data. Interviewees noted that Writer reduced the need for multiple AI tools and limited the number of licenses for those tools. Adopting Writer also freed hours for the IT team to focus on higher-priority tasks.
- Legacy environment savings were starkest for the senior vice president of product management and innovation in the healthcare industry; this was due to the specialized knowledge and high standards for data privacy in the highly regulated industry. To meet these industry criteria, the organization initially opted to build its own AI tools, which required significant involvement from multiple team members and diverted resources from other high-priority initiatives. It also resulted in scalability issues, iterative challenges, and delayed product launches with revenue impacts.
- Several other interviewees described decommissioning existing tools. The senior manager of artificial intelligence in the software industry described enterprisewide tool consolidation leading to six-figure savings. The senior marketing writer and campaign channels team lead also noted that the IT team was trying to consolidate AI tools. They shared, “We were able to limit the number of [an alternative AI tool] licenses that we purchased prior to Writer, saved a lot of funds, and went with Writer instead.”
- The staff writer in the financial services industry decommissioned a writing tool as well as a business account for an AI chatbot after adopting Writer.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- It experiences $90,000 worth of savings in licensing costs from decommissioned tools as well as one FTE saved from managing the prior tools.
- The average annual burdened salary of the FTE is $130,000.
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences, and the benefit will vary based on the following variables:
- The number of AI tools and licenses in the prior environment.
- The rate of decommissioning and consolidating AI tools as the organization adopts Writer.
- The organization’s investments in building AI tools in-house prior to Writer.
- The number of IT FTEs managing or building AI tools in the prior environment.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of more than $492,000.
Legacy Environment Savings
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E1 | Licensing from decommissioned or consolidated legacy tools | Interviews | $90,000 | $90,000 | $90,000 | |
| E2 | FTEs saved per year from legacy system management | Composite | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| E3 | Average fully burdened annual salary for FTE user of Writer | Composite | $130,000 | $130,000 | $130,000 | |
| Et | Legacy environment savings | E1+E2*E3 | $220,000 | $220,000 | $220,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓10% | |||||
| Etr | Legacy environment savings (risk-adjusted) | $198,000 | $198,000 | $198,000 | ||
| Three-year total: $594,000 | Three-year present value: $492,397 | |||||
Unquantified Benefits
Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:
- Revenue from decreased time to market. Several interviewees remarked that Writer empowered their teams to produce content and launch campaigns faster, which they noted translated to additional incremental revenue from both campaigns and new product launches. This also allowed teams to respond more quickly to market changes and customer needs.
- Increased customer satisfaction and use of services and offerings. Interviewees noted that improvements in content quality and consistency led to better customer engagement and satisfaction. The ability to quickly generate and update content has also helped their organizations to maintain customer interest and trust. The vice president of digital content strategy and operations in the financial services industry said: “When what your website is saying is different from the representative answering the phone, it creates a lot of customer angst. We’ve worked the last two years on abatement and deflection goals. It’s been very successful, and those have a real dollar amount. Writer is a piece of a program to help get higher quality and more consistent content across our channels — definitely a piece of the puzzle.”
- Improved security and compliance. Data security posed a major concern for all interviewees when considering alternative AI solutions, particularly for companies in industries in which training the LLM by using customer data was not permitted. The senior vice president of product management and innovation in the healthcare industry said: “The fact that Writer doesn’t train on our data is critical. It is not our data but our patients’ data. We feel strongly about that in healthcare.” The senior marketing writer and team lead in the software industry shared a similar sentiment: “We really liked that Writer had a proprietary LLM. And we knew that whatever we put into the tool isn’t being used to train the LLM on Writer’s end.”
Flexibility
The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Writer and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:
- Employee upskilling and training. As a byproduct of Writer’s streamlined processes to ensure compliance with brand standards, employees are trained to write higher-quality content when learning from their observations regarding what content is flagged or improved. This results in new learning and upskilling opportunities for employees, shifted focus to higher-priority projects as a result of time savings, and changes to open positions as a result of the automation of repetitive tasks. The senior marketing writer and team lead said, “When the time came to hire, we were able to hire a more junior person because they were able to get more of the queue done with the help of Writer — instead of having to do everything manually — and they still kept the same volume of work as one of our former senior people.”
- Expanding to other Writer use cases. Interviewees expressed excitement about exploring expanded use cases for Writer, including financial forecasting and risk management. They also considered how Writer can be integrated into more teams, processes, and departments.
Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Appendix A).
Quantified cost data as applied to the composite
Total Costs
| Ref. | Cost | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ftr | Subscription costs | $303,600 | $552,200 | $570,350 | $581,900 | $2,008,050 | $1,714,154 |
| Gtr | Implementation costs | $295,838 | $614,963 | $614,963 | $614,963 | $2,140,725 | $1,825,158 |
| Htr | Training and discovery | $1,380 | $19,780 | $34,385 | $26,335 | $81,880 | $67,565 |
| Total costs (risk-adjusted) | $600,818 | $1,188,323 | $1,219,123 | $1,225,613 | $4,233,875 | $3,609,471 | |
Subscription Costs
Evidence and data. Interviewees incurred subscription costs based on the number of Writer users, professional services involved, and custom agents. Pricing may vary. Contact Writer for additional details.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The composite organization incurs licensing and professional services costs of $120,000 in the initial period followed by $240,000 per year in Years 1, 2, and 3.
- The composite organization incurs an initial $6,000 in user costs. As the number of Writer users increases at the organization each year, the composite organization incurs $12,000 in user costs in Year 1, $28,500 in Year 2, and $39,000 in Year 3.
- The composite organization builds custom agents with Writer for its use cases, incurring initial costs of $150,000 followed by annual costs of $250,000 in Years 1, 2, and 3.
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences, and the benefit will vary based on the following variables:
- The number of users and extent of the organization’s adoption of Writer.
- The number of custom agents the organization builds.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.7 million.
Subscription Costs
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Licensing and professional services costs | Composite | $120,000 | $240,000 | $240,000 | $240,000 | |
| F2 | User costs | Composite | $6,000 | $12,000 | $28,500 | $39,000 | |
| F3 | Custom agents | Composite | $150,000 | $250,000 | $250,000 | $250,000 | |
| Ft | Subscription costs | F1+F2+F3 | $276,000 | $502,000 | $518,500 | $529,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↑10% | ||||||
| Ftr | Subscription costs (risk-adjusted) | $303,600 | $552,200 | $570,350 | $581,900 | ||
| Three-year total: $2,008,050 | Three-year present value: $1,714,154 | ||||||
Implementation Costs
Evidence and data. Interviewees described the integration of Writer as relatively easy, requiring little technical effort or involvement. Across interviewees, the implementation process took about one to three months per new use case or customization, with the Writer team providing continuous support and updates. Several interviewees launched an initial pilot phase ranging from three to 10 months, with continuous expansion and building of the program.
Interviewees described a consultative approach with Writer’s customer success and implementation team, realizing value quickly. On the customer side, a small core team of a project manager, AI strategy lead or senior change management team member, subject matter experts, and typically one IT FTE were involved per custom app.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The composite organization launches six use cases or custom agents in the initial period, following by 10 per year in Years 1, 2, and 3. Each use case or customization is executed in one month.
- One AI strategy lead with a fully burdened monthly salary of $15,000 is involved for 25% of the time in the first month. A quarter of the FTE’s time is involved for 10% of the time in subsequent months.
- One project manager with a fully burdened monthly salary of $8,500 is involved at 25% of the time in the first month. As use cases and custom agents expand across the organization, with 10 per subsequent year, the composite organization hires an additional project manager, and both dedicate 10% of their time in Years 1, 2, and 3.
- Four subject matter experts or department heads per use case, earning an average fully burdened monthly salary of $12,500, are involved 10% of the time in the initial period and in Years 1, 2, and 3 to provide guidance and insights.
- Two IT and security team members, each earning an average fully burdened monthly salary of $14,000, dedicate 25% of their time in the initial period, and one IT and security team member dedicates 10% of their time in Years 1, 2, and 3.
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences, and the benefit will vary based on the following variables:
- The size of the organization, the capacity of its teams, the intricacy of its change management processes, and the involvement of its leadership across business units.
- The number of use cases explored and customizations built.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.8 million.
Implementation Costs
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | Months spent on initial implementation and ongoing use cases and customizations (average one month per use case or customization) | Interviews | 6 | 10 | 10 | 10 | |
| G2 | AI strategy lead FTEs involved | Interviews | 1 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 0.25 | |
| G3 | Fully burdened monthly salary for an AI strategy lead | Composite | $15,000 | $15,000 | $15,000 | $15,000 | |
| G4 | Percentage of time spent | Interviews | 25% | 10% | 10% | 10% | |
| G5 | Subtotal: AI strategy lead cost | G1*G2*G3*G4 | $22,500 | $3,750 | $3,750 | $3,750 | |
| G6 | Project managers involved | Composite | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
| G7 | Fully burdened monthly salary for a project manager | Interviews | $8,500 | $8,500 | $8,500 | $8,500 | |
| G8 | Percentage of time spent | Composite | 25% | 10% | 10% | 10% | |
| G9 | Subtotal: Project manager cost | G1*G6*G7*G8 | $12,750 | $17,000 | $17,000 | $17,000 | |
| G10 | Subject matter experts and department heads involved | G1*4 | 24 | 40 | 40 | 40 | |
| G11 | Fully burdened monthly salary for a subject matter expert or department head | Composite | $12,500 | $12,500 | $12,500 | $12,500 | |
| G12 | Average fully burdened monthly salary for an IT and security team member | Composite | 10% | 10% | 10% | 10% | |
| G13 | Subtotal: Subject matter expert or department head cost | G1*G10*G11*G12 | $180,000 | $500,000 | $500,000 | $500,000 | |
| G14 | IT and security team members | Interviews | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| G15 | Average fully burdened monthly salary for an IT and security team member | Composite | $14,000 | $14,000 | $14,000 | $14,000 | |
| G16 | Percentage of time spent | Composite | 25% | 10% | 10% | 10% | |
| G17 | Subtotal: IT and security team member cost | G1*G14*G15*G16 | $42,000 | $14,000 | $14,000 | $14,000 | |
| Gt | Implementation costs | G5+G9+G13+G17 | $257,250 | $534,750 | $534,750 | $534,750 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↑15% | ||||||
| Gtr | Implementation costs (risk-adjusted) | $295,838 | $614,963 | $614,963 | $614,963 | ||
| Three-year total: $2,140,725 | Three-year present value: $1,825,158 | ||||||
Training And Discovery
Evidence and data. All interviewees described Writer as intuitive, with training involving an initial 1- or 2-hour session followed by ongoing training sessions, typically quarterly, or a dedicated group chat. The senior manager of artificial intelligence in the software industry said, “Someone could get up and running in a 45-minute or 1-hour training session.” Users quickly became proficient in using the tool.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The number of Writer users increases from 20 users in the initial period to 40 users in Year 1, 95 users in Year 2, and 130 users in Year 3.
- New users each year spend 1.5 hours on onboarding training.
- Users then spend time on ongoing training and discovery. In Year 1, they spend a total of 10 hours — 1 hour per new use case — with the hours reducing to 6 and 4 in Years 2 and 3, respectively, as the teams adapt to Writer.
- The average fully burdened hourly rate of a user is $40.
Risks. Results may not be representative of all experiences, and the benefit will vary based on the following variables:
- The number of Writer users and expansion of use cases at the organization.
- The teams’ dedication to onboarding and ongoing training.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $70,000.
Training And Discovery
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H1 | Writer users | Composite | 20 | 40 | 95 | 130 | |
| H2 | New Writer users | H1-H1 previous year | 20 | 20 | 55 | 35 | |
| H3 | Onboarding training hours for new users | Interviews | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | |
| H4 | Total training hours for new users | H2*H3 | 30 | 30 | 83 | 53 | |
| H5 | Additional hours per user per year for ongoing training and discovery | Interviews | 10 | 7 | 4 | ||
| H6 | Total hours per year for employee training | H4+H1*H5 | 30 | 430 | 653 | 573 | |
| H7 | Average fully burdened hourly rate for a Writer user | Composite | $40 | $40 | $40 | $40 | |
| Ht | Training and discovery | Composite | H6*H7 | $1,200 | $17,200 | $29,900 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↑15% | ||||||
| Htr | Training and discovery (risk-adjusted) | $1,380 | $19,780 | $34,385 | $26,335 | ||
Consolidated Three-Year Risk-Adjusted Metrics
Cash Flow Chart (Risk-Adjusted)
Total costs Total benefits Cumulative net benefits Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3-
The financial results calculated in the Benefits and Costs sections can be used to determine the ROI, NPV, and payback period for the composite organization’s investment. Forrester assumes a yearly discount rate of 10% for this analysis.
These risk-adjusted ROI, NPV, and payback period values are determined by applying risk-adjustment factors to the unadjusted results in each Benefit and Cost section.
Cash Flow Analysis (Risk-Adjusted Estimates)
| Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total costs | ($600,818) | ($1,186,943) | ($1,219,698) | ($1,223,198) | ($4,230,655) | ($3,606,877) |
| Total benefits | $0 | $3,554,994 | $5,730,635 | $10,202,111 | $19,487,741 | $15,632,874 |
| Net benefits | ($600,818) | $2,366,672 | $4,511,513 | $8,976,499 | $15,253,866 | $12,023,403 |
| ROI | 333% | |||||
| Payback | <6 months | |||||
Appendix A: Total Economic Impact
Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.
Total Economic Impact Approach
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Benefits represent the value the solution delivers to the business. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and costs, allowing for a full examination of the solution’s effect on the entire organization.
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Costs comprise all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the solution. The methodology captures implementation and ongoing costs associated with the solution.
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Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. The ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated.
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Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.”
The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.
Appendix B: Supplemental Material
Related Forrester Research
How To Thoughtfully Enable HR Professionals With Generative AI Tools, Forrester Research, Inc., June 26, 2024.
It Takes A Village To Make AI Copilots Successful, Forrester Research, Inc., September 4, 2024.
Appendix C: Endnotes
1 Source: How To Drive Employee Productivity With Generative AI, Forrester Research, Inc., March 11, 2024.
2 Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.
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