Chinese open-weight models went from under two per cent of measured token consumption to more than half in eighteen months. The result is that no one has to buy their intelligence from two companies. That is worth being clear-eyed about, including the parts that complicate it.
There are only three things an AI lab can be worth a trillion dollars for: the models, the products built on them, or the thing that does not exist yet. Two of those legs hold more weight than people assume, and neither holds enough.
A flat $30 seat that includes frontier-model usage is a promotional price, whoever is paying the difference. Companies are adopting Copilot because it is cheap and easy to govern. Both of those are real advantages. Neither answers the question that arrives at renewal.
