"“These models are very useful for researchers, for coding, for analysis, for literature summaries,” says Zou, a biomedical-data scientist who leads the AI for Science Laboratory at Stanford University in California. In his view, the fees, which are in the same ballpark as the cost of supporting a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, are worth it. He says “we're entering into a new golden age of science with AI assistance” that enables fundamental scientific advances because of the “increasing capabilities of these AI scientist agents”."
"“we're entering into a new golden age of science with AI assistance” that enables fundamental scientific advances because of the “increasing capabilities of these AI scientist agents”. But AI assistance is starting to look more expensive for researchers. AI providers have struggled to make the economics work for them on subscription plans, so are hiking up prices and tightening usage limits. In January 2025, Sam Altman posted on X that the firm was losing money on its $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro subscriptions because people were using the chatbot more than the company expected, driving up OpenAI's use of computing power and electricity."
"GitHub, a platform that allows developers to store and share their code, is the latest provider to change its pricing policy. On 27 April, it announced that it would move GitHub Copilot, its AI tool that helps users to write code, from a subscription-based service to usage-based billing from 1 June, citing the higher demands of agentic AI. Those changes are having an impact on researchers who have become increasingly dependent on AI."
"Attila Gáspár, an economist at Central European University in Vienna, has been using AI to extract data from historical documents. For around 18 months, Gáspár did everything he wanted with his university-paid subscription to the AI chatbot Claude, but in late April, he encountered a problem. “It said, 'You"
James Zou has spent more than US$100,000 on artificial intelligence over the past year, viewing the costs as worthwhile for research, coding, analysis, and literature summaries. He expects a new golden age of science enabled by increasing capabilities of AI scientist agents. AI providers have struggled to make subscription economics work, leading to higher prices and stricter usage limits. OpenAI reported losses on $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro subscriptions because users drove higher-than-expected compute and electricity costs. GitHub announced a shift for GitHub Copilot from subscription to usage-based billing starting 1 June, citing higher demands from agentic AI. Researchers relying on AI are experiencing disruptions when access limits change.
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