Ramp AI Index: AI use up 50%, spend down

The Ramp AI Index's latest reading, from Ramp economist Ara Kharazian, puts two trends side by side: companies are using more AI, but paying less for it. Usage climbed about 50 percent since spending peaked in July and reached a record high at the end of September, even as the spending line fell. Kharazian attributes the drop almost entirely to competition between OpenAI and Anthropic, along with price cuts on top models and cheaper, more efficient standard and lite models.

Within that spending mix, the split is narrow. In the last week of September covered by the data, Anthropic took 51 percent of token spending and OpenAI took 44.5 percent. Open-source models, by contrast, still account for less than five percent of business spending. The Index draws on transaction data from more than 70,000 US companies, though its token data comes from a subsample, and Kharazian notes the analysis covers only API spending and skews toward large AI customers.

This is not the first decline in the index, but it has lasted unusually long. What happens next likely hinges on whether the price competition between OpenAI and Anthropic continues, and on how much of the broader business market the API-focused, large-customer-skewed data actually reflects. For the large API buyers the index captures, the practical effect so far has been more usage for less outlay.