India, June 11 -- Enterprises are rationing AI because they are paying for effort instead of outcomes. The startups that build the outcome-pricing layer, particularly in India's inference stack, can own the next shift in AI adoption.

AI today is sold and priced by the units of effort the model expends (tokens) rather than the outcome the user receives. This category error is now producing visible dislocations of expectations at enterprises across the world.

If the largest AI companies, on the path to their IPOs, are claiming that their agents will replace the future human workforce, this antinomy will need to be solved sooner than later.

Speaking at the intelligence at work event in late May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman conceded that token c...