A key benchmark for AI token prices hit a record low this week. It is a sign that prices are continuing to fall as competition intensifies in the AI industry, CNBC reported on Monday.

According to the report, the LLM Token Spend Index calculated by market data firm SiliconData fell to 97 cents on Aug. 31. It was the lowest level since the index was launched late last year. It was also down by more than half from a peak this summer. The index tracks the market price per token for large language models on a daily basis.

Falling token prices reduce the cost of using chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. But for model developers, consumers can become accustomed to lower prices, which can hurt pricing power, CNBC reported.

Charles-Henry Monchau (샤를앙리 몽쇼), chief investment officer at Syz Group, recently cited the rise of Chinese open-source models such as Moonshot Kimi K3 as a reason for the price decline.

OpenAI also cut prices for 2 GPT-5.6 models in late July. Monchau said other frontier labs are also offering products with a "dynamic pricing" system in which prices move with demand. He added that these moves are putting additional downward pressure on token market prices.

The index decline could weigh on profitability for Anthropic and OpenAI, which are considering initial public offerings. Falling token prices could also affect return expectations for big tech companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft that have invested heavily in AI infrastructure.