Chinese AI Models Are Up to 90% Cheaper, and US Labs' Usage Share Fell From 70% to 30% in a Year
cen6wkf · reddit · 2026-09-11
Scott Galloway and journalist Josh Tyrangiel argue the biggest business story right now is pricing, not model quality: per Juniper Research, Chinese AI models run up to 90% cheaper than the US frontier, and American labs' usage share slid from roughly 70% to 30% in a single year.
The mechanism, they say, is subsidized distillation plus the classic undercut-then-lock-in playbook China has applied elsewhere — now aimed at the AI stack every US CFO is signing off on. The discount isn't the story; who owns the decision once the discount does its job is.
The poster adds a firsthand 2009 Abu Dhabi construction anecdote about escaping a monopoly concrete supplier by lining up alternatives, then asks readers: if your AI vendor doubled prices tomorrow, do you actually have a #2 lined up — or are you a captive account?
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