Enterprise AI Weekly | EP12 | No Frontier LLMs for Uber, AT&T, Stripe, Pinterest, Coinbase!

Billions poured into frontier AI this week: Harvey, Clay, and Mistral all raised, into the tens of billions. In the same week, some of the largest operators running AI at scale went the other way. In EP12 of Enterprise AI Weekly I make the case that the more important story is the migration off frontier models, not the raises. Uber, AT&T, Stripe, Pinterest, and Coinbase are dropping frontier models for the simpler work, post-training and running open models, and routing each request to the cheapest model that can do the job. The results are not rounding errors: Uber cut cost per session by more than 50 percent with spend flat since March, Pinterest pays about 8 dollars where it used to pay 100, and AT&T cut its AI bill 56 percent at roughly a 2 percent quality cost. By some comparisons the priciest frontier model runs up to 100 times the cost of a capable open one, and Ramp's data shows AI spend at the top 1 percent of firms fell 10 percent in August. That raises two questions I keep turning over: should everyone become a builder now, and should everyone really reach for the most impressive model for everyday work? None of these companies made the move blind, they measure every model on their real work first. The visibility is what unlocks the savings. We break the full math on Tuesday. Directional as always. The data is public. Check my math, and tell me if you see it differently. Chapters 00:00 A moment for September 11th 00:50 The week's raises: Harvey, Clay, Mistral 02:00 The giants walking off the frontier 02:35 Uber, and the numbers 03:40 Pinterest to $8, AT&T down 56% 04:30 The 100x line, and Ramp's falling spend 05:30 The race versus the enterprise reality 06:30 Should everyone be a builder? 07:40 Should everyone use the most expensive model? 08:40 What made the move possible, and the weekend question Enterprise AI Weekly is a Friday roundup on the economics of enterprise AI, from Paul Brzozowski, co-founder of Olakai. Your AI is an investment. Let's measure it like one. #EnterpriseAI #AIROI #OpenModels #ModelRouting #FinOps #Tokenomics #Uber #Pinterest #ATT