Ramp data shows AI spending growth slowing as Anthropic nears its IPO

Ramp's latest data builds on its September finding of slower AI adoption and lower spending at top firms, with spending by the top 1% of AI users dipping below summer peaks in August and September, according to TechCrunch. Token spending rose 8.9% from September 23 to October 23, but remained under pressure from lower prices and tighter cost controls.

Median firms spend $12 to $15 per employee each month on AI, while the top 10% spend $600 to $1,000. The top 1% had reached nearly $10,000 per employee during the summer, making changes in that group large enough to slow overall spending growth despite increases among other customers.

OpenAI cut API prices in half for GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna in September, while Anthropic reduced prices for Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5. Anthropic said in a recent filing that its pricing reductions cut revenue growth by about $600 million. Ramp lead economist Ara Kharazian expects companies to impose budgets on employees and route more work to cheaper models.

Ramp's own AI Index shows Anthropic took 60.5% of business token spending on Ramp in the week ending October 23, and that the top 1% of AI-paying firms spent a median of $9,567.53 per employee per month, against $15.70 for the median firm. In his October note, Kharazian wrote that August and September brought "two straight months of virtually no growth in token spend," and pointed to price cuts at the frontier as the main driver.