Analysis of 2.4 billion enterprise API calls shows the blended cost of AI dropped 67% year over year, from $18.40 to $6.07 per million tokens between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026. That number is accurate. It is also almost entirely irrelevant to what is actually happening to enterprise AI invoices right now.
Total spend equals price per unit multiplied by volume consumed. The first variable is falling. The second is growing faster than any budget model accounted for. The FinOps Foundation’s 2026 State of FinOps report found that 73% of enterprises reported their AI costs exceeded original projections. Price and invoice are moving in opposite directions. The gap between them is the problem this piece is about.