OpenAI Will Keep Driving Down Prices, Sam Altman Says

Summary
Bloomberg anchor Ed Ludlow interviews OpenAI CEO Sam Altman live from OpenAI Developer Day. They discuss OpenAI’s pricing structure, specifically positioning GPT-6.1 Sol at Astra-level capabilities while cutting inference costs, and Altman outlines OpenAI’s strategy of driving quality up while pushing prices down across the Pareto frontier.

What is shown

• [00:00] Ed Ludlow questioning Sam Altman about compute costs, pricing strategy, and tiered access for newly announced models.
• [00:18] Ludlow and Altman discussing the launch of GPT-6.1 Sol relative to GPT-6 Astra.
• [00:39] Altman explaining OpenAI’s long-term objective of maximizing capability while lowering inference prices to capture expansive developer demand.

Claims & numbers

• The interviewer states that OpenAI launched GPT-6.1 Sol with Astra-level capabilities, and Sam Altman highlights that it launched at “a fifth of the price” [00:23].
• Sam Altman claims that certain frontier models remain priced higher than other market options due to their advanced capabilities and the sheer amount of compute required [00:05].
• Sam Altman states that OpenAI aims to continuously lead the Pareto frontier at every point of the price/performance curve while driving down costs [01:00].

Notable quotes

• [00:23] “And a fifth of the price.” — Sam Altman
• [00:39] “We’ve talked for a long time about our goal is to make increasingly better intelligence and to drive the price down and down.” — Sam Altman
• [00:59] “Our belief is that if you continue to drive the quality up and the price down, and really lead the Pareto frontier at every point on that curve, people will use our tools in tremendous ways...” — Sam Altman

Assessment
This is a live news broadcast interview rather than a product demonstration. No software benchmarks or live product interfaces are displayed on screen, with the focus solely on executive discussion of pricing economics and deployment strategies.

Described by gemini-3.8-flash on 2026-09-29 from the video’s audio and frames.