The TopCat AI Signal Report #94

There’s another problem nobody likes talking about: AI COST

OpenAI researchers are reportedly spending enormous amounts on AI coding agents.

One reported top user is burning through more than $7,000 a day in tokens, while median daily usage among researchers reportedly climbed dramatically over recent months.

That gives us another signal:

Capability doesn’t equal profitability.

An agent that can perform 100 tasks isn’t automatically valuable if those tasks cost more than the value they create.

That’s going to become one of the defining business questions of the next AI cycle:

What’s the cost per completed outcome—not the cost per token?

That’s the metric I’d watch.