Open Source Model Forces AI Giants into Subsidy Battle, OpenAI and Anthropic Face Valuation Pressure

According to MotionGain Research, the Open Weight Model is rewriting the pricing rules in the AI market. Companies are no longer entrusting all tasks to OpenAI and Anthropic, but instead are using affordable models for routine work and only calling on top-tier models for difficult challenges.

Customers are also becoming increasingly disloyal to model vendors. Customer service platform Pylon received about $1.6 million worth of free tokens from a supplier this year, along with several months of unlimited usage. Model companies are now relying on subsidies to retain customers.

Chinese models like Kimi and GLM are also starting to penetrate American enterprises. In the past two weeks, approximately half of Hex's customers have integrated Kimi into their workflows. Harvey, on the other hand, has instructed GLM-5.2 to handle tasks initially and then call on Anthropic's Fable 5 for challenging problems.

The high valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic rely on two assumptions: that businesses will extensively use top-tier models and will be willing to pay high prices over the long term. The Open Weight Model is currently undermining both of these assumptions simultaneously.

While the two companies may still have the most powerful models, they may only receive the most difficult and fewer tasks. As more tokens are directed towards affordable models, their revenue growth and pricing power will be under pressure, forcing them to continue offering free quotas and subsidies to attract customers.

The price war brought about by the Open Weight Model is now challenging the high valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic before their public listing.