Enterprise AI spending soars as token prices plunge, prompting new Tokenomics Foundation

Key Points

• Token prices fell 98%, from $20 to $0.40 per million tokens.
• Enterprise AI bills have risen roughly 320% despite lower token costs.
• Per‑developer token consumption jumped about 18.6× in nine months.
• Uber burned through its 2026 AI coding budget by April; a company incurred a $500 M Claude bill in one month.
• Linux Foundation announced the Tokenomics Foundation to standardize AI token cost management.
• FinOps and observability firms are adding token‑level monitoring and optimization tools.
• Model routing services aim to lower spend by automatically selecting cheaper models.