News Summary

• The soaring cost of running AI models has become one of the biggest threats to consumer AI startups.
• This is forcing some of these young companies to slow growth, pivot to business products, or risk being copied by larger rivals with deeper pockets.
• Inworld is responding by lowering prices and offering deeper discounts as customers scale.
• The company, which has raised more than $117 million and says revenue has grown fivefold since the start of 2026, is betting that cheaper AI infrastructure will allow a new generation of consumer applications to reach massive scale.