Meta launches paid AI model: Muse Spark 1.1 challenges OpenAI and Anthropic
Meta has launched Muse Spark 1.1, its first paid AI model, with pricing significantly lower than its competitors. This marks a strategic shift for the company.
What happened?
On Thursday 10 July 2026, Meta launched its multimodal AI model Muse Spark 1.1 as a paid API service. The model is priced at $1.25 per million input tokens and $4.25 per million output tokens. This pricing is approximately a quarter of what OpenAI and Anthropic charge for their flagship models.
Key facts
”Meta entered the paid AI model market on Thursday with Muse Spark 1.1, a multimodal reasoning model priced at $1.25 per million input tokens and $4.25 per million output tokens — roughly one-quarter of what Anthropic and OpenAI charge for their current flagship models.”
”Until July 9, Meta's AI strategy was defined by giving models away. The Llama family — downloaded more than 1.2 billion times and averaging roughly one million downloads per day by early 2026 — reached developers as open weights, funded internally by advertising revenue.”
”In March 2026, Google told Meta it could no longer supply the full volume of Gemini AI capacity Meta had been purchasing, forcing the company to ration internal token usage and accelerate its reliance on its own models for content mo”
Why it matters
The launch of Muse Spark 1.1 represents a significant shift in Meta's AI strategy. Previously, Meta offered its models, such as the Llama family, as open source, financed through advertising revenue. By now offering a closed, hosted, and token-based model, Meta enters directly into competition with OpenAI and Anthropic on their business model. This change is partly driven by Google reducing its supply of Gemini AI capacity to Meta in March 2026, forcing the company to rely more quickly on its own proprietary models.
Who is affected?
Developers using AI models for coding agents and other high-volume applications are directly affected by Meta's new price structure, as their operating costs could decrease significantly. Competitors OpenAI and Anthropic face increased competition on the pricing front. Users of Meta's existing open models, such as Llama, are not directly affected by this launch, but Meta's overall AI strategy is shifting.
What else you should know
Meta's Llama models have been downloaded over 1.2 billion times, averaging one million downloads per day in early 2026, indicating a large user base witnessing Meta's first commercial AI model.
Quick answers about this story
Vad har hänt?
När hände det?
Varför spelar det roll?
Vilka bolag berörs?
Är Muse Spark 1.1 tillgänglig i EU?
The link opens in a new window and leads to the publisher's own site.
Källan har spårats automatiskt från utgivaren via Aheadlines signalkedja.
AI-verktyg i artikeln
Topics
Get similar news straight to your inbox
The reader's room
Send in a question or an addition. The newsroom reads everything before it's published and replies when relevant. No AI-generated text – just people.
Sign in to submit a comment or question.
Read the article through your role
- Decide whether this affects strategy over 6–12 months or is just noise.
- Discuss with leadership: do we own the right question or does ownership need to move?
- Ask: what risk are we taking by NOT acting on this this quarter?
Generated angle — not editorial analysis of "Meta launches paid AI model: Muse Spark 1.1 challenges OpenA"