The AI discount era gets even weirder
DeepSeek says its flagship V4-Pro model is getting a permanent 75% price cut, locking in a quarter of its original price. That’s not a promo code. That’s a full-on statement of intent.
Why this matters
If you’re an investor, the headline isn’t just “cheaper AI.” It’s that the economics of model access are still being rewritten in real time. When one major player drops pricing this hard, everyone else has to ask a very annoying question: do we match it, or do we watch customers wander off?
The ripple effect
That can mean:
- more pressure on AI infrastructure vendors to prove usage can scale fast enough
- tougher margin math for model providers chasing enterprise contracts
- lower barriers for developers and startups that want powerful AI without taking out a second mortgage
Big picture: the AI race is starting to look less like a gold rush and more like airline ticket pricing — everyone’s trying to undercut everyone else, and nobody’s thrilled about it.