What happened
The Ramp AI Index rose 1.65 percent month over month in October 2026, as the top 1 percent of companies by AI spending paid a median $10,200 per employee per month, up nine percent, while a typical company spent just $16.32.
Why it matters
The gap between heavy users and typical firms suggests AI spending remains concentrated among a small group, even as overall adoption reached 56.8 percent, according to Ramp.
WHO IT HITSFinance and procurement teams at US businesses tracking AI budgets will see that spending is still growing but at a slower pace, with the heaviest users paying thousands per employee while typical firms spend little.
Summaries like this, every morning.
The Ramp AI Index draws on payment data from more than 85,000 US companies, but Ramp notes the customer base skews growth-oriented, tech-savvy, and larger than US businesses overall, so AI adoption is likely overstated. The index also excludes free AI tools and usage through personal accounts, which may understate actual activity.
Within the data, spending growth diverged: OpenAI rose 2.1 percent month over month while Anthropic grew 0.5 percent, and a single percent of companies drive 80 percent of revenue for both. That top tier is mostly venture-backed firms in tech, finance, and technical services, while outside those sectors AI adoption is barely spreading, according to Ramp chief economist Ara Kharazian.
Prices are falling even as usage grows. The average price per million processed text tokens dropped 21 percent last month, driven by competitive pressure between OpenAI and Anthropic along with open-weight models from China. Meanwhile, customer support and customer success departments lifted their share of AI spending from 0.8 percent in June to 13.3 percent in October, but these use cases tend to favor cheaper, faster models, which may mean lower margins for OpenAI and Anthropic as new customers arrive.
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