Amazon shifts Anthropic AI billing to token model, disputes report of higher costs

Amazon said it has restructured part of its AI partnership with Anthropic, moving from compute-hour billing to a token-based pricing model starting next year. A report from The Information suggested the new model could raise Amazon’s costs for using Anthropic’s Claude models, but Amazon publicly disputed that interpretation and said the expanded collaboration will not increase its costs. The update matters because Anthropic models are used across Amazon’s AI products, including Alexa Shopping, Kiro, and Quick, and the deal underscores Amazon’s deepening AI infrastructure strategy. Amazon has already invested $4 billion in Anthropic since 2023, with plans to invest up to an additional $25 billion, while Anthropic uses AWS as its primary cloud and Amazon chips for training and inference. Amazon also highlighted a separate OpenAI partnership, signaling continued heavy spending to secure AI capabilities and cloud demand.