GoKawiilEpoch AI: cost of top AI performance falling roughly 50% per quarter
Research firm Epoch AI reports that the cost of achieving a fixed level of AI performance on the GPQA Diamond benchmark has dropped nearly 50% per quarter, or about 13-fold annually. The firm found OpenAI's GPT o3, released January 2025, cost $0.30 per question to hit a 75% score, while GPT-5.6 Luna later matched that score for $0.0004 per question. Epoch says this decline outpaces historical cost curves for lithium-ion batteries, DNA sequencing, and computing hardware.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The data suggests that as capable AI becomes dramatically cheaper to run, more advanced models could become viable for everyday business tasks rather than only specialized or high-budget use cases. It also implies that AI providers may struggle to maintain premium pricing as cheaper models reach similar performance, intensifying competition on cost rather than just capability. This could reshape how software vendors price AI features and how enterprises budget for AI deployment.
- AI performance costs are falling about 50% per quarter, or roughly 13x yearly, per Epoch AI.
- This decline is faster than historical cost drops in batteries, DNA sequencing, and computing hardware.
- OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Luna reportedly matched GPT o3's benchmark score at a fraction of the cost, per question.
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See NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: techspot.com — Skye Jacobs, 2026-10-01
Published there as: “The cost of AI performance is falling so fast it could reshape the entire software market”
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