The technology powering today's most advanced chatbots may be turning into a commodity, and according to The Wall Street Journal, that shift is a growing problem for the industry's two best-known startups, OpenAI and Anthropic.
The core idea is straightforward. When a product becomes a commodity, it stops being special and starts competing mostly on price. As one summary of the WSJ report puts it, artificial intelligence could become "too cheap to meter" — so abundant and inexpensive that charging a premium for it gets hard.
That matters because OpenAI and Anthropic have built their businesses on being at the frontier, selling access to their leading AI models. If comparable intelligence becomes cheap and widely available, the advantage of being first or best narrows, and the pricing power that supports their revenue could erode.
The same trend, the report notes, is not bad news for everyone. What threatens the leading labs also creates opportunity for their competitors. Cheaper, more plentiful AI lowers the cost for rivals and newcomers to build products on top of the technology, potentially leveling a field the two companies have led.
The sources here are limited to the WSJ story and a short summary of it, so the broader specifics — exact figures, company responses, or timelines — aren't detailed in the material provided.
Why it matters: If AI intelligence becomes a cheap, interchangeable utility, the companies that defined the boom may find it harder to turn their lead into lasting profit.