Software firms that supply AI chatbot solutions are shifting their business model. They are moving from freemium, which gave trial users unlimited access to tokens, to usage-based billing.
Companies wanted to grow their user base, much like OpenAI did in its early days as the first to market supplier. They willingly bought AI hardware, losing more as user activity growth increased. Unfortunately, when Anthropic’s revenue grew to $47 bilion as of May 26, it showed that customers did not demonstrate loyalty to their chatbot.
The AI cycle is moving from training models to continuous inference. AI firms cannot continue to give away their solutions at a loss. This will cause AI costs to rise to their operating costs.
Uber (UBER), whose stock indicated a bullish “double bottom” pattern, admitted that its staff spent its entire 2026 AI budget in only four months. The company mistakenly incentivized staff: the more tokens they used, the higher their performance rating.
An unnamed company accidentally spent $500 million on Claude AI in only a month. Management failed to set limits on licenses for employees.
Your Takeaway
Stock valuations relied on user and revenue growth. Those days are over. Investors will look at profit margins and positive return on investments. That will spell trouble ahead. Even firms like Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta Platforms (META) are not safe from a valuation reset.
