Companies are using more AI than ever, but they are not spending much more on it. That is the picture from card-spending data at Ramp, the finance software company, according to TechCrunch and a summary on AI Weekly, published as reports say the valuation talk for Anthropic’s planned IPO is falling.
The numbers. Ramp says token spend, the money companies pay for AI model usage, grew 1.5% across August and September, after a 42% jump in July from the month before. For the four weeks to October 23, spending rose 8.9%, according to the figures reported. Other coverage adds that token volume rose 37.1% over that period, which means companies are buying far more usage for each dollar.
Who is spending. Ara Kharazian, Ramp’s lead economist, told TechCrunch that almost the entire spend on AI comes from venture-backed, high-growth tech companies. The top 1% of firms dipped slightly in August and September, just below the roughly $10,000 per employee per month they reached at summer peaks. Median firms spend $12 to $15 per employee per month and the top 10% spend $600 to $1,000, according to the article. Kharazian said a slowdown among the heaviest users is enough to slow revenue, even with rising volumes.
Why it may be slowing. TechCrunch points to price cuts: in September, OpenAI cut API prices in half for two of its models, and Anthropic made significant price cuts for two of its own. The article says a recent Anthropic filing states that this reduced revenue growth by about $600 million. Kharazian said the slowdown is not a demand problem, and that companies may use more AI but pay less for it. Kharazian is skeptical that personal agents, which Kharazian called less economically productive than coding, will drive growth.
Who is winning share. Other coverage of the Ramp data says Anthropic had the largest share of business AI token spending in the week ending October 23, at 60.5%, up from 51.3% a month earlier, with OpenAI at 35.1%. That detail comes from a secondary summary and the sample size and method are not stated in TechCrunch’s article. Ramp says its data is not representative of all AI spend.
The IPO angle. TechCrunch reports that Bloomberg said Anthropic’s potential valuation fell from $2 trillion in early October to between $1.2 trillion and $1.3 trillion. Other outlets give different figures and say some buyers are weighing a value as low as $1.1 trillion, so the numbers vary by source and date. Forbes notes that Anthropic’s amended IPO filing shows third-quarter revenue of $16.96 billion. These are reported figures, not an Anthropic statement.
Why it matters. The AI boom has been built on rising spending on models and computing power. If companies use cost control and cheaper models, spending can level off even while use rises, which affects how investors value the companies that sell AI. For businesses in the US and UK, falling prices mean more AI for the same budget, while for AI companies, volume growth has to outrun price cuts.
What to watch. Look for Ramp’s next monthly figures, Anthropic’s final IPO terms, and whether price cuts at OpenAI and others keep pressure on revenue growth.
Sources: TechCrunch, AI Weekly and other summaries of Ramp’s data, citing Bloomberg and Forbes for valuation figures. This is not investment advice.
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