FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 22, 2026
Riot of Colors Announces EcoRouter, an Efficiency Layer Designed to Reduce AI Waste
New routing technology helps organizations reduce unnecessary AI costs, processing, and environmental impact by avoiding model calls when simpler methods can do the job.
MANASSAS, Va. — Riot of Colors (ROC), a Virginia SWaM-certified, minority-owned creative and technology studio, today announced EcoRouter, an efficiency layer helping organizations reduce the financial and environmental waste created when generative AI handles tasks that don’t require it.
EcoRouter sits between an application and the technologies available to complete a request. Rather than automatically sending every task to a large AI model, EcoRouter first determines whether a lower-cost, lower-impact method can do the job through conventional software, structured data, reusable results, local processing or smaller models.
The goal is simple:
Use the lightest appropriate method that can do the job well.
“We’re seeing companies integrate AI into everything, but every AI request carries a cost—environmental, financial and operational. It all adds up,” said Chris Moore, founder and Chief Creative & Innovation Officer of Riot of Colors. “Some of those requests genuinely require advanced models. Many don’t. EcoRouter is all about eliminating that waste before it happens so we can protect what matters.”
Reducing AI Waste at the Routing Layer
For a single request, the difference between traditional computing and a large AI model may seem small. Across thousands or millions of requests, those decisions compound.
Organizations that deploy AI across their products and systems must account for API and inference costs, processing time, infrastructure, latency, and energy use. Data centers consume significant amounts of electricity, and some cooling systems also require water.
EcoRouter addresses those costs before an application invokes a model.
Instead of focusing only on which AI model should process a request, EcoRouter first asks:
Does this request need AI at all?
Businesses increasingly add AI to workflows that conventional software, search, rules, retrieval, templates, APIs or existing systems may already solve. EcoRouter evaluates the task first and uses AI only when AI actually adds value.
A lookup, formatting change, known transformation, deterministic calculation, or previously solved request may not need generative AI at all.
When a task does require AI, EcoRouter can route it to an appropriate model or computational path. When it does not, EcoRouter avoids the more expensive call entirely.
That can mean fewer paid AI calls, faster responses for simpler tasks, lower processing demands, and greater visibility into how an organization uses AI.
“Efficiency isn’t just about saving money or making something faster,” Moore said. “There are real environmental costs to using these systems, and there are real concerns about replacing people simply because the technology exists. We should be more deliberate about where AI actually belongs and where it doesn’t.”
Making Waste Measurable
EcoRouter also gives organizations visibility into how requests move through a system and where it avoids more resource-intensive paths.
The system tracks and surfaces metrics including:
- Generative AI calls used and avoided
- Estimated AI-related electricity impact
- Estimated AI-related water impact
- Processing time
- Routing method
- Reused or cached results
- Escalation between computational paths
EcoRouter presents environmental impact measurements as estimates and makes its methodology and assumptions visible wherever possible.
These measurements give engineering, product, technology and sustainability teams a clearer view of how their organizations consume AI resources.
Early development testing has already produced useful results in milliseconds without invoking generative AI.
When that happens, EcoRouter makes the result immediately clear:
0 GENERATIVE AI CALLS
Additional routing and impact information shows how EcoRouter produced the result and which resources it avoided using.
An Efficiency Layer for Organizations Using AI
EcoRouter is not another foundation model, nor does it replace the AI platforms organizations already use.
It operates in front of them.
Applications send requests through EcoRouter. EcoRouter evaluates what each task requires and selects an appropriate path. Depending on the request, that path could include:
Traditional computing → reuse → local processing → smaller models → larger cloud AI models
This approach lets organizations continue using advanced generative AI where it provides meaningful value while reducing unnecessary reliance on it elsewhere.
A single routing decision can address multiple business priorities at once. Avoiding unnecessary processing can reduce API and infrastructure expenses while also reducing the energy and other resources required to produce a result.
ROC is developing EcoRouter for organizations that incorporate AI into products, internal systems and large-scale digital workflows, including customer service, enterprise search, knowledge management, document processing, content platforms, recommendation systems, internal tools and AI-enabled applications.
The longer-term goal is to make resource-aware routing a standard part of AI architecture, giving organizations greater control over when they use AI, what level of technology a task requires, and what that decision costs.
Currently in Development
EcoRouter remains an active Riot of Colors research and development project. ROC is not announcing it as a public commercial release at this time.
Current development focuses on intelligent request routing, URL and content ingestion, reusable results, multiple computational paths, human-readable impact reporting, routing transparency, and measurement tools.
Future development will expand benchmarking, API integration, local and smaller-model execution, organizational dashboards, configurable routing policies and methods for measuring the AI processing and cost that EcoRouter helps organizations avoid.
Riot of Colors plans to share additional demonstrations, findings, and development milestones as EcoRouter evolves.
About Riot of Colors
Riot of Colors (ROC) is a Virginia SWaM-certified, minority-owned creative and technology studio that builds brand systems, adaptive platforms, interactive environments and next-generation digital products across social, screens and spaces.
ROC combines strategy, design, engineering, accessibility, data and emerging technology to make complex ideas clearer and create experiences that evolve with the people who use them.
The ROC team has created award-winning work for organizations including National Geographic, Amazon, Marvel, Microsoft, Gucci, Nike, NBA, the City of Atlanta, James Madison University, Booz Allen Hamilton and the U.S. Department of Defense.
Website: riotofcolors.com
Email: info@riotofcolors.com
Phone: 703-863-8138
Media Contact
Sara Moore
Riot of Colors
sara@riotofcolors.com