AI prices are falling faster than yesterday's spreadsheet

In brief

OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 Luna prices by another 80% — one week after launch, input drops to 20 cents per million tokens, five times cheaper than the closest competitor
Gemini Spark now runs inside Chrome, available in 160+ countries — the agent uses your existing logged-in accounts, watches Gmail, books meetings
Granola meeting notepad becomes a serious pick for small business — €12/month, no bot in the room, keeps your shorthand style

Bottom line: the AI cost window is shrinking faster than most owners can recalculate. Every “not worth it” assumption from three months ago needs a fresh look — many old-shelved projects now cost €3-10/month.

1. OpenAI cuts prices another 80% — a week after launch

What changed. On July 30, OpenAI cut prices on two of its cheaper GPT-5.6 tiers: Luna input drops from $1 to $0.20 per million tokens (80% cut), output from $6 to $1.20. Mid-tier Terra is cut by 20%. The reason — internal efficiency gains drop end-to-end serving costs by 20% and improve token generation efficiency by 15%. This is the second Luna price change in two weeks.

What it means for a small business. If in May or June you ran the numbers on automating customer email replies or generating product descriptions and concluded “that costs about €30/month” — that number is wrong now. It’s €3-5/month for the same work. If you run a small online store with 500 customer questions a month, a properly set-up AI response system now costs less than a week of team coffee. Every project you shelved “until it gets cheaper” needs a fresh cost sheet.

What you can do this week.

List 3 recurring tasks you shelved for cost reasons (customer replies, product copy, translations, invoice processing) — recalculate using openai.com/api/pricing
If you’re not technical — try ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) as a back-office assistant — upload 20 customer emails and ask it to draft reply templates; takes 30 min, pays off in the first week
If you have technical help — ask them to wire up a simple Luna-model script that auto-classifies incoming email into 3 buckets (urgent, standard, spam); Zapier can drive it with OpenAI for €0-20/month

What to watch.

Next round of price cuts likely within 4-6 weeks — Anthropic and Google now have to react
Cheap AI now competes directly with human hourly work — expect the first case studies of small teams freeing up 1-2 hours per employee per day by August-September

2. Gemini Spark moves into Chrome — now in 160+ countries

What changed. Google added Gemini Spark to desktop Chrome — the agent can use your already-logged-in Chrome accounts, saved passwords, and browse on your behalf. Google examples — book apartment viewings, search flights, start a booking. At the same time, Spark is available in 160+ countries, including the Baltics, for Google AI Pro subscribers ($20/month). Spark also watches your Gmail inbox so you don’t miss a customer question.

What it means for a small business. Until now, an “AI agent” was a separate, expensive tool to install and configure. Now the browser where you open Gmail and banking every morning has an agent sitting inside it with access to your sessions. If you run an accounting practice or a consulting firm and spend 40 minutes a day answering “when can we schedule a call?” — that work is now automatable without engineering. Spark can check your Google Calendar, suggest slots, and draft the reply.

What you can do this week.

If you already pay for Google Workspace — check whether Spark is enabled on your account (gemini.google.com) and request Chrome integration
If not — try Google AI Pro for a month ($20/month) — in the first week point Spark at your Gmail inbox with the prompt “draft replies to any meeting-scheduling requests”
At the end of the week compare — how many minutes you saved and whether the drafts were usable with minimal edits

What to watch.

Microsoft and Apple will move in a similar direction in the autumn — expect Copilot and Apple Intelligence to add deeper browser integration
Agent-safety issues will get hot — within 2-3 months expect the first stories about agents “doing too much” without permission

3. Granola — meeting notes without a bot in the room, €12/month

What changed. Casey Newton of Platformer interviewed Granola founder Chris Pedregal about why the tool refuses to add “manager surveillance” features that most bigger meeting platforms have. Granola works differently: you write shorthand during the meeting (4-6 bullet points), and after the call the AI expands them using the live transcript. No bot joins your Zoom or Teams call. Real users rate it 9.5/10. Price: $14/month (~€13), free plan up to 25 meetings.

What it means for a small business. If you run a consulting practice, an architect studio or any service business with 3-8 client meetings a week, meeting notes are the work you either don’t do or do too late. Traditional “bot” tools (Otter, Fireflies) confuse clients — a suspicious extra participant appears in the call list. Granola stays on your machine, the client sees nothing new, and after the meeting you get a structured summary in 30 seconds that you can send or paste into a follow-up.

What you can do this week.

Install Granola on the free plan (granola.ai) — try it on your next 5 meetings; free tier covers up to 25 meetings total
If you already use Notion or HubSpot — Granola integrates automatically, summaries land on the client record with no extra work
Compare with what you did before: how much time you saved vs. the 30 minutes you usually spend writing notes after the call

What to watch.

Meeting-tool split by user segment — individual/small business (Granola) vs enterprise teams (Otter, Fireflies) — becomes permanent
Privacy debate hits Europe in the autumn — AI Act rules on meeting recordings take effect; a small business needs to know where the data lives

Today’s picture

Three stories say the same thing: AI is finally where you already are, at a price you already spend on coffee. GPT-5.6 Luna is so cheap the May “too expensive” spreadsheet is wrong. Gemini Spark sits inside your Chrome without a separate install. Granola runs on your Mac without a bot that confuses the client. The pattern — AI is no longer “a tool to roll out”, but a layer on top of what you already do.

Event	Consequence
GPT-5.6 Luna cut another 80%	Old “too expensive” calculation no longer valid — many projects now €3-5/mo
Gemini Spark moves into Chrome with your account	Wiring up an agent no longer needs a separate tool or engineering
Granola: meeting notes without a bot	Personal-assistant capability for small business at €13/mo, client sees nothing

Three questions for a small business owner:

Which AI project was shelved in the last 3 months on cost grounds and now needs a fresh cost sheet?
Which daily task in your Chrome browser (Gmail, calendar, banking) took the most clicks this week?
When did you last write a structured meeting summary — and how often do you skip it because there’s no time?

AI prices are falling faster than yesterday's spreadsheet

In brief

1. OpenAI cuts prices another 80% — a week after launch

2. Gemini Spark moves into Chrome — now in 160+ countries

3. Granola — meeting notes without a bot in the room, €12/month

Today’s picture

Sources

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