Analysis
Inference Economics in 2026: The Latency-Margin Trap
Inference economics—not model quality—will determine which AI products survive 2026. The fundamental tradeoff between per-token cost and p99 latency is locked in physics: builders can optimize for low cost, low latency, or high throughput, but not all three simultaneously. Most products are priced at the cheap end while their UX demands the expensive end.
