The case against token sales as AI labs’ long-term business model

A June 2026 post argues that selling universal access to fixed-unit-cost frontier AI tokens will not let labs capture durable value. Its author proposes a model to identify where intelligence earns the highest returns, paired with a continually learning deployment system. They argue that selling tokens while trying to capture lasting value puts labs in competition with their best customers, and urge firms to control their own proprietary learning loops.