CNBC: OpenAI and Anthropic Face a New Reality as Users Shift From 'Tokenmaxxing' to Efficiency

CNBC·medium signal

CNBC reports that enterprise AI spend is rotating away from maximizing token throughput toward cost-efficiency, pressuring the per-token revenue assumptions of the frontier labs. The shift aligns with GPT-5.6 Terra being marketed as '2x cheaper' and the rise of token-reduction tooling. For builders, it confirms that efficiency and predictable caching — not raw model size — are becoming the buying criteria.