In roughly one month, three of the biggest names in AI shipped new models, and the story wasn't the capabilities. It was the price. The floor under AI is falling fast, and if you pay for these tools, that's the most important trend of 2026. Here's what happened and what it means.
What just launched
Three launches in quick succession tell the whole story.
Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5 on June 30 and made it the default for every free and Pro user the next day. It's the most agentic Sonnet yet, and at intro pricing it costs about $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output, before rising to $3 and $15 after August 31.
OpenAI shipped its GPT-5.6 family in three sizes, Luna, Terra, and Sol, priced from roughly $1 to $5 per million input tokens, spreading the lineup across budget and premium tiers.
