Sam Altman reveals top AI concern among Sun Valley tech leaders
Sam Altman shares demand is growing for AI models that deliver more value at lower cost
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said reducing the cost of artificial intelligence has emerged as the biggest topic among technology executives at this year's Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference, as companies focus on improving returns from their AI investments.
Speaking to CNBC at the annual gathering in Idaho, Altman said business leaders are increasingly looking for ways to lower AI spending while boosting efficiency.
AI spending becomes top concern for executives
Altman said this was the first time AI costs had become a major discussion point at the conference, which attracts some of the world's most influential technology and media executives.
"Everyone's asking what we can do to help reduce spend or increase value," he said, adding that enterprises are becoming more focused on efficiency and the return they receive from AI deployments.
The conference's attendee list this year included Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
OpenAI touts GPT-5.6 efficiency gains
Altman said OpenAI designed its newly launched GPT-5.6 model family with cost and speed in mind to address growing customer demand for more efficient AI systems.
The latest release includes the flagship Sol model, the general-purpose Terra model and the lower-cost Luna model.
According to Altman, GPT-5.6 Sol is 54% more token-efficient on agentic coding tasks, although he did not specify which previous model the comparison was based on.
He said nearly every enterprise is now evaluating AI based on both spending and the value generated from those investments.
Businesses seek better returns from AI
Altman's comments reflect a broader industry shift as companies look for ways to reduce AI infrastructure costs.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently said his company is testing lower-cost Chinese AI models for some engineering tasks while routing prompts to different models based on cost and performance.
Meanwhile, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch has encouraged businesses to use models from multiple AI providers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini and Chinese developers, to optimise value and avoid relying on a single platform.