Is AI getting cheaper to use?
$2.00
Getting cheaper-27% YoY
Median listed price per 1M tokens across AI models from their makers, with 3 input tokens per output token
Signals
If software were solved, each of these numbers would show it.
Based on these data sources. Suggest a signal.
Can AI models do real engineering tasks?
83%
Improving+12% YoY
Best score so far on SWE-bench Verified, the share of real GitHub issues resolved
How much does a hard coding task cost?
$99
Trend starts with the next check
AI usage cost per FrontierSWE task for a near-top score
How long a task can AI complete?
17 hours
Trend starts with the next check
Human working hours of tasks completed with 50% success
Are people still building?
408M
Git pushes increased+95% YoY
Git pushes worldwide on GitHub, latest quarter
Are coding agents shipping code in public?
1.5M
More agents+177% YoY
Public GitHub pull requests clearly labelled as coming from coding agents, latest full month
Are people paying for tools that avoid writing code?
$13.5B
Still growing+27% YoY
Combined annual revenue of Wix and Shopify, latest full year
Is AI use still growing?
787T
Growing+3423% YoY
Tokens used through OpenRouter, latest full month
How much AI use is coding?
26%
Falling-36% YoY
Share of OpenRouter tokens estimated to be programming, latest full month
Are coding agents doing more work?
205T
Growing+3179% YoY
Tokens used by the coding apps OpenRouter ranks, latest full month
Are more tech businesses starting?
13,806
More applications+49% YoY
New US business applications in the information sector, latest full month
Are people putting sites built with AI on the web?
6,768
Growing
Crawled sites built on Lovable and Emergent, latest month
Do we still need people to write software?
80.8
Recovering+24% YoY
US software postings on Indeed (Feb 2020 = 100)
Do developers think software is solved?
7%
Skeptical
Sampled Hacker News comments and Bluesky posts taking a side that say it is getting solved, last 12 months
Are the companies building AI still hiring engineers?
464
Still hiring
Trend starts with the next check
Open software engineering roles at 11 AI companies, today
Do developers still ask other people?
1,046
Asking less-80% YoY
Questions asked on Stack Overflow, latest full month
Are fewer people producing more?
151.2
More per worker+14% YoY
US information sector real output per worker, Q4 2022 = 100
Is the wider tech and media sector hiring?
94K
Hiring less-26% YoY
US information sector job openings, average over the last 12 months, in thousands
Are companies still paying others to build software?
$118B
Still growing+7% YoY
Combined annual revenue of Accenture, Cognizant, Infosys, EPAM and Globant, latest full year
Is the money still growing?
$192B
Still growing+15% YoY
Annual revenue of 10 public software companies
Is software getting cheaper?
102.1
Rising+2% YoY
US producer price index for software publishers
Are we still getting pwned?
313
Getting worse+24% YoY
Added to CISA's exploited list, last 12 months
Do major software services stay up?
1,679
More incidents+18% YoY
Incidents at 12 software services, last 12 months
Does software still break?
98,371
More reported+109% YoY
New vulnerabilities published in the National Vulnerability Database, last 12 months
Are businesses still paying for software?
$986B
Still rising+13% YoY
US private investment in software, adjusted for inflation, latest quarter, in billions of dollars a year
Supporting context
These signals do not contribute to the overall score.
Are people still building tools for AI models?
7,639
Expanding+1208% YoY
New public GitHub repos tagged mcp-server, latest full month
Are people still launching new software?
837
More launches+194% YoY
New products launched on Uneed, latest full month
Do AI models think software is solved?
20%
Say not yet
Median answer from AI models asked to score it from 0% to 100%