(Nov 12): Nearly 6 in 10 senior executives at large companies plan to increase their use of cheaper open-weight ​AI models over the next year as AI bills ‌overshoot budgets, a Capgemini study showed on Thursday.

This trend echoes SAP, whose finance chief last month said it was replacing some of its costliest ​AI models with cheaper ones where performance held up. ​Anthropic, which launched its IPO roadshow this week, also warned ⁠in its prospectus that customers may shift to cheaper ​options, including open-weight models.

Open-weight models, like those from DeepSeek or Mistral, ​can be downloaded and run anywhere, while closed options, like Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini models, are only accessible from the cloud.

Some 59% of the ​surveyed executives said AI spending over the past year had ​been significantly above their expectations or budgets, by 24% on average, while ‌53% ⁠said they were worried about AI costs — last year, 45% of executives had expressed such concerns.

Open-weight models handled 72% of traffic on OpenRouter, a popular multi-AI provider, in September, though that ​represented just 27% ​of AI ⁠spending, Capgemini said.

The IT consulting firm said open-weight tokens were on average 87% cheaper than closed ​ones. Closed models broadly remain in the mix, ​with ⁠half the respondents saying they would retain closed models where the complexity of the task warranted the additional cost.

Capgemini, which is ⁠helping companies ​embed AI into their existing platforms, ​surveyed 500 executives at enterprises with annual revenue of more than $1 billion in ​10 countries.

Uploaded by Siow Chen Ming