Questions this post answers
How much has AT&T saved by switching from frontier AI models to open models for coding tasks?
AT&T cut coding costs by 56% by routing that work to open models instead of frontier models like those from OpenAI and Anthropic, while output quality dropped only about 2%. The company currently sends roughly 40% of employee AI usage to open models, processing about 45 billion tokens per day, and plans to increase that share to 60-70%. Enterprises weighing frontier versus open model costs can follow real-world adoption shifts like this on daily.dev.
Are companies still using frontier models like GPT and Claude for anything if open models are cheaper?
Yes, AT&T still relies on frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI for critical, high-stakes work, while shifting routine tasks to open models where its AI chief says they perform just as well or better for many use cases. The split reflects a cost-quality tradeoff rather than a full abandonment of frontier providers. Track how enterprises split workloads between frontier and open models on daily.dev.