US enterprise AI budgets split into three tiers, pushing smaller firms to Chinese models
Two Chinese outlets republished the same report describing how US enterprise AI budgets have split into three tiers under token-cost pressure: giants such as Microsoft and Meta are shifting to in-house models (MAI-Code-1-Flash, MetaCode, Muse Code) and cutting external model budgets; mid-size firms like Uber spent a full year's AI budget in under four months and are trimming seats or downgrading; and small firms and startups are turning to Chinese open-weight models. It cites OpenRouter data putting Chinese models at a 46.4% weekly share peak, with DeepSeek leading at 17.6%, and says OpenAI has cut prices twice (GPT-5.6 Luna, GPT-6 Sol) in response. The report also mentions Anthropic billing third-party agent frameworks separately in April and GitHub pausing new Copilot Pro/Pro+ signups.
If this tiering holds, frontier labs risk losing both their largest and smallest customers, making price and compliance — not raw capability — the main variables in enterprise model choice.