If you think the prices of using AI at full capacity are too high, that could soon change. According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI would be studying drastically reducing what it charges users while trying to win customers against its rival Anthropic.
The company is considering major cuts in the price of the tokensthe unit that AI companies use to bill their products. Curiously, the movement would occur in anticipation of similar reductions that OpenAI expects from Anthropic. If this decision materializes, it could push other companies to do the same and cause the subscription to reduce its price, whichever AI service you use.
Companies have already begun to reject the high prices of using AI. The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altmansaid at a recent event that costs had become ‘a huge problem’. ‘I think we will have many ways to help people get more value while spending less’he stated.
However, drastic price cuts could affect the profit margins of both companies, which They are already losing billions of dollars due to the enormous cost of the necessary computing resources for AI systems to process queries and perform tasks.
OpenAI’s competition with Anthropic
OpenAI tries to catch up to Anthropic in the race for capture enterprise customers who pay large amounts of money for AI tools capable of improving productivity at work. Anthropic’s revenue recently soared after its scheduling tool Claude Code went viral among software engineers, and the startup, founded five years ago, surpassed OpenAI’s valuation for the first time. Since then, Sam Altman’s company has developed its own programming tool, Codexin a priority.
Some corporations have invested so much money in Anthropic products that Its managers are now trying to contain spending. Recently, an executive Uber said the company had exhausted its 2026 budget for the use of agentic, or autonomous, AIand another company official noted last month that it was difficult to link the productivity improvements achieved with AI in programming with new features for customers.
Comments of this type by many managers have opened a debate in Silicon Valley about the so-called ‘tokenmaxxing’the practice of using as many tokens as possible to increase productivity.
And then there is Google. Your models Geminiespecially the economical versions Flashthey lower the prices of both ChatGPT and Claude, and their plans for companies They cost almost half of what OpenAI chargeswhich adds even more competitive pressure.
A price war would be a first test to measure the solidity of business models of both companies before their expected IPOs. OpenAI and Anthropic have captured the majority of revenue from new AI products, fueling their rise. But a fundamental risk that investors have been pointing out for some time is the interchangeability of your products and the ease with which customers can abandon one for the other.
OpenAI confidentially submitted documentation for an IPO earlier this week, following in the footsteps of Anthropic. According to The Information, Altman told his employees that the company plans to carry it out ‘within the next year’.
For users, it’s good news. They could soon see a drastic reduction in their AI costs. Competition is always good for consumers and a price reduction is one of its great benefits.