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The Pignatelli Costing Framework (PCF):
Redefining Productivity and Costing in the Age of AI
Looking for major client organisations to do my doctoral research. Please pass on to anyone who may be interested. Thanks!
I am currently embarking on a doctoral degree exploring Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Future of Work. AI, specifically Generative AI, represents a technological inflection point that not only alters tasks and processes but also challenges the very conceptualisation of the 'worker' within organisations. In what ways will organisations redefine productivity measurement and costing in the era of AI and automation?
Traditionally, the unit of 'worker' has been understood in terms of Full-Time Equivalents (FTE) or human Full-Time Equivalents (hFTE). Yet, with the increasing integration of AI systems, it is necessary to extend this conceptualisation to encompass additional categories: machine Full-Time Equivalents (mFTE), human-led, AI-Augmented Equivalents (aFTE), Digital Cognitive Resource Equivalents (dFTE), and human-AI Symbiotic Equivalents (sFTE). This expanded taxonomy highlights a fundamental shift from purely human labour toward hybrid and symbiotic human–machine configurations.
Moreover, as the roles of hFTE, mFTE, aFTE, dFTE, and sFTE expand, the geometric configuration of roles within organisations and industries is likely to transform. Historically, organisational design has been represented as hierarchical, linear, or matrix-based. Yet under AI augmentation, the pattern of roles may evolve into new geometric forms — diamond, hourglass, networked, symbiotic, and multidimensional structures — where human and machine equivalents are interdependent. This re-conceptualisation has implications not only at the firm level but also across industries, as entire sectors realign around new role distributions and patterns of value creation.
The Pignatelli Costing Framework
Within this context, The Pignatelli Costing Framework (PCF) introduces a new approach to productivity measurement and cost attribution in AI-augmented organisations. Building on the principles of Multimodal Productivity Costing (MPC), the PCF recognises that cost structures must adapt to account for multiple productive modalities — human, machine, augmented, directed, and symbiotic — and the dynamic value they generate. It provides a mechanism for understanding how cost, productivity, and innovation intersect within evolving human–machine ecosystems, translating geometric shifts in organisational design into measurable fiscal and performance insights.
This raises a central research question: how will decision-making interactions and the geometric reconfiguration of roles between hFTE, mFTE, aFTE, dFTE, and sFTE influence the evolution of costing methodologies in an AI-augmented world? Addressing this requires examining not only the current applications of Generative AI, as a form of Narrow AI, but also the implications for multimodal productivity measurement and cost attribution as organisations transition toward environments shaped by General AI and, ultimately, Super AI.
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