The Price of Intelligence: A Quality-Adjusted Price Index for AI Services
Posted prices for AI inference have fallen steadily since 2024, yet the measured speed of that fall depends almost entirely on the method of measurement. This paper constructs quality-adjusted price indices for the AI inference market from public data. The panel assembles 21,024 posted-price observations across 3,208 models and 86 providers and joins them to 4,605 benchmark scores through a latent quality index estimated from benchmark response patterns, so the quality ladder of the hedonic tradition is built here from evaluations in place of product characteristics. Measured by the matched-model methods that statistical agencies apply to software, inference prices fell at 0.10 log points...
| Authors | Louis Yiven Zhu |
|---|---|
| Primary category | econ.GN |
| Published | 30 August 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 30 August 2026 |
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