AI performance costs are falling faster than those of any previous technology

AimostAll news brief curated from The Decoder.

Source details

Original source
The Decoder
Published
2026-09-24
Primary topic
Foundation Models

Why it matters

Model launches, benchmark jumps, API upgrades, context window changes, and frontier LLM competition. Use the original source for the full report, then use the directory shortcuts below to compare the products and workflows the story points toward.

What happened

AI is hitting a fixed benchmark performance level at a rapidly falling cost. Epoch AI measures a price decline of about 13x per year. After stripping out hardware gains and competition, MIT puts annual algorithmic progress at about 3x. That doesn't mean today's best models are cheaper, though. Reasoning models, for example, can cost more because they use far more compute per task. When picking a model for real-world use, quality, speed, and error rate matter just as much as price. The article AI performance costs are falling faster than those of any previous technology appeared first on The Decoder .

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Compare the hosted model pages first, then check the related tools and buyer guides before changing workflow standards.

AI is hitting a fixed benchmark performance level at a rapidly falling cost. Epoch AI measures a price decline of about 13x per year. After stripping out hardware gains and competition, MIT puts annual algorithmic progress at about 3x. That doesn't mean today's best models are cheaper, though. Reasoning models, for example, can cost more because they use far more compute per task. When picking a model for real-world use, quality, speed, and error rate matter just as much as price. The article AI performance costs are falling faster than those of any previous technology appeared first on The Decoder .

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