The AI Market is Turning Away from Frontier Models | Utilizing AI Episode 37
Educational, Talk Show, 29-Jul-2026
So-called frontier models have gotten better and better, but users are increasingly focused on AI-powered applications rather than treating the chatbot as the application. This episode of Utilizing AI features Brad Shimmin and Guy Currier of The Futurum Group discussing the impact of Tokenomics on the development of AI models. Until recently, AI models were offerd a loss-leader pricing or even free to entice users to adopt them. But once the providers began charging for them, architects and users are considering alternatives. This has given rise to specialized small models for agentic applications like Meta's Muse Spark, Google's Gemma, and many others besides. Companies are also pushing AI processing to the edge, with Apple's Siri running transparently on-device or in their cloud compute without the user's involvement. We are returning to a world where task-specific applications will be the product with the AI model being a resource used to deliver value rather than as a destination in itself.This and more on this episode of Utilizing AI presented by OpenText. Utilizing AI is part of The Futurum Group Podcast Network.