Much of the agentic intelligence is at the client. The llm backend is largely swappable. For instance, claude-code paired with any model performs well enough for many usecases. In fact, the real breakthrough is how an agent paired with an unreliable llm could perform well. Given this dynamic, I see llm tokens as the electrons or electricity, and agents as the toasters, and appliances using those electrons. If you extend this analogy, value will bubble up into the appliances which would each have consumer preferences. A token is a token no matter who produces it, just as an electron is, but I like my KitchenAid toaster, whats your preference ?

But Claude Code works about as well as Codex and roughly the same as Github Copilot. So what part of this pipeline is supposed to command premium pricing?

You might prefer your KitchenAid toaster but I'd wager you won't pay enough to support a trillion dollar valuation.