Coinbase CEO Expects AI Model Costs to Fall 99% for Most Use Cases

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said AI model costs for most workloads could fall by 99% over the next 12 to 18 months as businesses increasingly rely on older and open-source models instead of premium offerings. Responding to concerns about rising API costs, Armstrong noted that Coinbase already routes many prompts to lower-cost models, helping keep expenses stable while AI generates around 40% of the company’s code. He cited advances in open-source models and rapidly declining inference costs as key drivers of the trend, with premium models likely reserved for frontier research and advanced AI applications.