---
title: "Cost review agent"
slug: "cost-review-agent"
updated: 2026-10-29T11:13:36Z
published: 2026-10-29T11:13:36Z
canonical: "docs.turbo360.com/cost-review-agent"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.turbo360.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Cost review agent

## Overview

**Cost review agent** is an AI-powered tool in Cost Analyzer that assembles a comprehensive cost report for a cost management group on demand. Instead of manually pulling data from multiple Cost Analyzer views, it compiles an executive summary, spending trends, top cost drivers, notable resource changes, budget incidents, anomalies, optimization posture, and prioritized recommended actions into a single ready-to-present report from one panel.

### Business value

Cost reviews typically require FinOps practitioners to gather data from several different views before a meeting. Cost review agent eliminates that preparation time by generating a complete, structured report in seconds. The report covers the key questions any cost review meeting needs to answer: how much is being spent, where it is going, what changed, what needs attention, and what to do next.

## Prerequisites

### Required permissions

Access to Cost review agent is controlled by role and feature permissions in Cost Analyzer. Permissions are assigned per role under **User management**. The **AI Agents** permission must also be enabled at the account level. See [AI Agents in Cost Analyzer](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/ai-agents-cost-analyzer) for how to enable it.

| Role | Permission level | Access |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Account owner, Owner, Contributor | - | Full access to Cost review agent |
| Custom role | Analysis: Read, Group budget: Read, Anomaly detection: Read, Optimization: Read | Access to Cost review agent with AI Agents enabled |

**Group budget** and **Anomaly detection** are set under **Specify monitoring tab permissions** in the role editor. The **Monitoring** switch under **Specify feature permissions** must be set to **Enable**.

Users who lack Read access on **Group budget** or **Anomaly detection** still see the Cost review agent option in the context menu. The report hides the content that depends on the missing permission.

| Without | Hidden from the report |
| --- | --- |
| **Group budget** Read | The **Group budget incidents** tab in the activity card; the **Budget health** and **Forecast** rows in **Review scorecard**; the budget recommended actions; the budget facts in the AI summary |
| **Anomaly detection** Read | The **Anomalies** tab in the activity card; the **Anomalies** row in **Review scorecard**; the anomaly recommended actions; the anomaly facts in the AI summary |
| Both | The red risk banner. The activity card is also hidden if the user also lacks Read on **Saved views**. |

## How it works

Cost review agent generates an AI-compiled cost report scoped to a single cost management group. The report is built from live data at the time you run it and covers the current and previous calendar months.

Each report is organized into the following sections:

- **Risk banner:** a red banner at the top of the report that calls out items awaiting action, such as the number of open budget incidents.
- **Summary cards:** four headline figures covering current month spend, projected month-end spend, last month spend, and potential savings from rightsizing and reservations combined. Each card shows a comparison or run rate beneath the figure, such as the change vs. last month or the daily spend rate.
- **Executive summary:** a short AI-written narrative of the group's spend, budget position, anomalies, and savings opportunity. It is labeled as AI-generated from the group's data.
- **Monthly spend chart:** a bar chart showing amortized monthly spend over the past six months, with the average monthly spend, the peak month highlighted, and the current partial month shown separately.
- **Top cost drivers:** the top services by spend for the selected month, with percentage change vs. the prior month. Switch between the completed and current month using the month tabs.
- **Cost breakdown:** spend by subscription and resource group for the selected month, with amount, share of total, and change vs. the prior month. Switch between Subscriptions and Resource Groups using the tabs.
- **Notable movers:** resources that increased, decreased, started charging, or stopped charging between two months. Summary badges show the total count in each category, and the panel lists the top movers in each direction.
- **Activity card:** a card with tabs for recent activity in the group:
  - **Group budget incidents:** budget threshold breaches in the last 30 days, with the number fired and still open, and the open or closed status of the most recent incidents.
  - **Anomalies:** cost spikes detected by the anomaly detection engine in the recent period, each with its date, the size of the jump, and a severity such as Warning or Info.
  - **Saved views:** a snapshot of up to five pinned analysis views, showing each view's name, collection, total spend, period, and grouping dimension. Views with no spend in the period are tagged **No spend**.
- **Optimization posture:** current rightsizing and reservation savings potential, active schedules count, and owned reservations in scope.
- **Review scorecard:** a five-item health summary covering budget health, anomalies, optimization, spend trend, and forecast. Each item shows a status and a brief supporting figure.
- **Recommended actions:** a numbered list of actions prioritized by impact, derived from the findings across all sections of the report.

The report header shows the date and time the data was compiled. You can refresh the report to pull the latest data, or save it as a PDF for sharing.

## Steps

Open Cost review agent from the cost management group's context menu or from the **Cost review agent** card on the group's Overview tab.

### Run a review

Running a review generates a fresh cost report for the selected cost management group.

1. Click the **Context menu ( ⋮ )** next to the cost management group in the tree view.
2. Select **Cost review agent** under **Tools**.
3. The report opens and loads automatically. If no review has been run today, click **Run review** on the Overview tab card instead.

### Refresh the report

Refreshing pulls the latest data without closing and reopening the panel.

1. Click the **Refresh** icon in the top-right corner of the Cost Review panel.
2. The report reloads with data current to the moment of the refresh.

### Save as PDF

Saving as PDF exports the full report for sharing or archiving.

1. Click **Save as PDF** in the bottom-right corner of the panel.
2. The report downloads immediately as a PDF file.

## Example scenario

A FinOps lead at Contoso prepares for a monthly cloud cost review meeting. They open the cost management group, select Cost review agent from the context menu, and read the report to see the month's cost drivers. The Review scorecard flags that budget health is at risk due to open incidents, and the Recommended actions list leads with resolving those incidents before the meeting starts.

## Limitations

- The report is scoped to a single cost management group and cannot span multiple groups in one run.
- Data in the report reflects the state at the time the review was run. It does not update automatically; use Refresh to pull the latest data.
- Saved views coverage is limited to the five pinned analysis views in the active collection.
- AI Agents must be enabled at the account level. If AI Agents are disabled, Cost review agent is unavailable regardless of role permissions.

## Troubleshooting

1. **Cost review agent does not appear in the context menu** Cause: The signed-in user does not have Contributor or higher access on the cost management group. Fix: Ask an Account owner or Owner to grant Contributor access on the relevant cost management group.
2. **The report opens but some sections are hidden** Cause: The user has the required system role but is missing Read access on **Group budget** or **Anomaly detection**, so the report hides the sections that depend on them. The table under Required permissions lists the hidden items. Missing Read access on Analysis or Optimization leaves the sections that depend on them without data. Fix: Ask an admin to assign the missing feature permissions under Settings > User management > Roles. Group budget and Anomaly detection are under Specify monitoring tab permissions, and Monitoring must be set to Enable.
3. **AI Agents is not enabled and Cost review agent cannot be used** Cause: AI Agents has not been enabled for the Turbo360 account. Fix: Contact your Turbo360 administrator to enable AI Agents. See [AI Agents in Cost Analyzer](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/ai-agents-cost-analyzer) for details.
4. **The report data appears outdated** Cause: The report reflects data from the last time it was run and does not update automatically. Fix: Click the **Refresh** icon in the top-right corner of the panel to regenerate the report with the latest data.
5. **Recommended actions list is empty** Cause: No actionable findings were detected across the monitored sections: budget health, anomalies, optimization, and notable movers are all within expected ranges. Fix: No action is required. The absence of recommended actions indicates the group is healthy at the time of the review.

## FAQs

1. **How often can I run a cost review?** You can run or refresh a review at any time. There is no daily limit on how many times the report can be generated for a group.
2. **Does Cost review agent store the report history?** The Overview tab card shows the status of the most recent review run. Full report history is not stored in the portal, but you can save any review as a PDF for your own records.
3. **Can I share the Cost review report with someone who does not have access to Turbo360?** Yes. Use **Save as PDF** to download the report and share it externally. The PDF includes all sections visible at the time it was saved.

## Related articles

- [AI Agents in Cost Analyzer](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/ai-agents-cost-analyzer)
- [Managing cost groups](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/managing-cost-management-groups)
- [Cost management groups](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/cost-management-groups)
- [Savings tracker](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/savings-tracker)
- [Unit economics](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/unit-economics)
- [Group budget monitoring](https://docs.turbo360.com/docs/group-budget-monitoring)