AI Costs Explode as Token Consumption Proves Unpredictable and Usage-Based Billing Takes Over
The era of cheap, unlimited AI access is ending. GitHub Copilot, Anthropic, and other providers are transitioning from fixed subscription models to usage-based billing as infrastructure costs mount. A University of Michigan study reveals AI agents consume 3,500 times more tokens than simple prompts, with costs varying wildly between models and even between runs of the same task.