Frank Downing(@downingARK):totally agree for "general purpose" models. The valid exception would be the cost comparison of a general purpose frontier model to a smaller model fine tuned for a narrow use case. The latter can still yield material cost savings, for example in the Crowdstrike data below, but only if you have a stable and sufficiently scaled use case to justify the R&D investment (not one time but ongoing to keep up w/ the frontier).

Frank Downing

@downingARK

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Frank Downing@downingARK

2026.09.22 20:17

totally agree for "general purpose" models. The valid exception would be the cost comparison of a general purpose frontier model to a smaller model fine tuned for a narrow use case. The latter can still yield material cost savings, for example in the Crowdstrike data below, but only if you have a stable and sufficiently scaled use case to justify the R&D investment (not one time but ongoing to keep up w/ the frontier).