Frontier AI faces pricing reckoning as token volume explodes 25-fold — mid-tier models deliver 90% of flagship capability at one-sixth the cost

AI development might not be the wild west it was when ChatGPT burst onto the scene a few years ago, but it's still very much a frontier, with no clear boundaries and few yardsticks. But for AI developers on the frontier, they're pulling hard towards dual goals of ever greater intelligence and ever cheaper per-token pricing, and it's leading to a real back-and-forth of who's truly ahead, with some winners only holding the top spot for a few hours.Although Anthropic's Claude Fable and Opus models have been consistently competitive at the very top of the intelligence charts, they're also some of the most costly to use. For more general use, some are paying closer attention to the "Pareto Frontier," where peak intelligence and minimal cost reach the pinnacle, and there the competition is fierce and ever-changing.