The thing that everyone seems to be missing is that the US AI companies are focused on the frontier models, that are very expensive for diminishing returns.
If suddenly the money craze stops, meaning (1) AI companies investors want them to become profitable and (2) clients start being cost-sensitive to AI bills (which they are absolutely not currently), then everyone will switch to smaller, cheaper models that are enough for a lot of use case.
Sonnet instead of Opus. GPT 5.4 instead of 5.5.
Chinese models.
People keep comparing to Uber but Uber can't suddenly make it cheaper to operate.
If suddenly the money craze stops, meaning (1) AI companies investors want them to become profitable and (2) clients start being cost-sensitive to AI bills (which they are absolutely not currently), then everyone will switch to smaller, cheaper models that are enough for a lot of use case.
Sonnet instead of Opus. GPT 5.4 instead of 5.5.
Chinese models.
People keep comparing to Uber but Uber can't suddenly make it cheaper to operate.