Amazon Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels stated that rising AI costs are prompting many companies to rethink their AI usage, with a shift towards cheaper open-source models. Speaking at the United Nations' AI for Good Summit, Vogels noted that organizations are becoming more careful about AI spending as the cost of using advanced models from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind rises. He said businesses do not always need the most powerful AI model for every task and are increasingly seeking lower-cost alternatives. "We see a shift happening between the cheaper open source models and the bigger expensive models," Vogels said. He emphasized that cost is a very important part of architecture. Vogels also said transparency is becoming extremely important, as people want to know what data goes into AI models, particularly in sectors like healthcare, government and humanitarian work. During the summit, Amazon introduced a new open-source AI tool that helps researchers search scientific datasets using natural language, connecting the AWS Registry of Open Data, which contains more than 1,100 datasets from organizations including NASA, NOAA and the US National Institutes of Health.