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Ramp AI Index: US corporate AI spending hits a high in October, up only 1.65%

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Ramp AI Index: US corporate AI spending hits a high in October, up only 1.65%

US corporate AI spending hit a new high in October 2026, but growth was modest. The Ramp AI Index, which tracks AI spending among business customers of financial services provider Ramp, showed a 1.65 percent increase month over month, according to The Decoder's report.

Spending is highly uneven. The top one percent of companies by AI spending paid a median of $10,200 per employee per month, up nine percent. A typical company spent $16.32, a rise of less than a dollar from the previous month.

OpenAI's business spending grew faster than Anthropic's: 2.1 percent month over month against 0.5 percent. Ramp chief economist Ara Kharazian says the structural risks he identified in his earlier analysis persist. One percent of companies drive 80 percent of revenue for OpenAI and Anthropic, and that top tier is mostly venture-backed firms in tech, finance and technical services. The Decoder adds that outside those sectors, AI adoption is barely spreading.

Prices are falling at the same time. The average price per million processed text tokens dropped 21 percent last month, according to Ramp. Usage volume is growing faster than spending, so AI keeps getting cheaper. The Decoder attributes this to competitive pressure between OpenAI and Anthropic, along with open-weight models from China.

SpacexSI grew 2.2 percent, the fastest of any software company in Ramp's dataset, and holds a 6.3 percent market share on Ramp. The Decoder reads this as a sign of bias in Ramp's data rather than a big win for Grok: the growth is probably driven by the coding tool Cursor, which belongs to SpacexSI, and the share most likely does not reflect the broader market. On adoption, Anthropic reached 44.8 percent, up 1.1 percentage points, while OpenAI held steady at 40.6 percent. Overall adoption of AI services rose to 56.8 percent.

By department, software development teams accounted for 72 percent of all tracked AI spending in October, but their spending has declined from summer highs. Customer support and customer success departments grew fastest: their share of AI spending climbed from 0.8 percent in June to 13.3 percent in October, possibly driven by AI chatbots in customer service. Leadership teams also spent slightly more. Kharazian writes that customer support is nowhere near matching the rapid growth development teams posted earlier this year. These use cases also tend to favor cheaper, faster models over the most expensive flagship ones, which means new customers may bring OpenAI and Anthropic lower margins. Still, the share of the most expensive models, which Kharazian identifies as Opus, Fable, Sol and Astra, edged up slightly in October to 69.5 percent of total spending.

The data comes with caveats. The index draws on payment data from more than 85,000 US companies, but free AI tools and usage through personal accounts may be missing. Ramp's customer base skews growth-oriented, tech-savvy and larger than US businesses overall, so AI adoption is likely overstated. Separate token volume and spending metrics come only from companies using Ramp Token Spend Management and are not representative of overall AI spending on the platform.

Key facts

  • The Ramp AI Index shows US corporate AI spending at a new high in October 2026, but up just 1.65 percent month over month.
  • The top one percent of companies by AI spending paid a median of $10,200 per employee per month (up nine percent); a typical company spent $16.32.
  • Spending on OpenAI grew 2.1 percent against 0.5 percent for Anthropic; one percent of companies drive 80 percent of revenue for both, per Ramp.
  • The average price per million processed text tokens fell 21 percent last month; software development teams made up 72 percent of tracked AI spending.
  • Customer support and customer success grew their share of AI spending from 0.8 percent in June to 13.3 percent in October.

Why it matters

The headline is a new spending high, but the detail is a slowdown: 1.65 percent month-over-month growth. The data also shows how concentrated the money is. One percent of companies drive 80 percent of revenue for OpenAI and Anthropic, and outside tech, finance and technical services, adoption is barely spreading, according to The Decoder. At the same time, token prices fell 21 percent in a month while usage grew faster than spending. Kharazian says the structural risks he identified earlier persist.

Who it affects

OpenAI and Anthropic are the main subjects: OpenAI spending grew 2.1 percent against 0.5 percent for Anthropic, while Anthropic leads on adoption at 44.8 percent against OpenAI's 40.6 percent among Ramp customers. The Decoder says new customer support users may bring both companies lower margins. Companies in the top tier, mostly venture-backed firms in tech, finance and technical services, carry most of the spend. SpacexSI, which owns Cursor, shows the fastest growth in Ramp's software data at 2.2 percent.

How to use it

Treat the figures as a read on direction rather than a measure of the whole US market. The useful comparisons are the shifts inside the data: software development at 72 percent of tracked spending but off its summer highs, customer support rising from 0.8 percent to 13.3 percent of spending between June and October, and the most expensive models, which Kharazian names as Opus, Fable, Sol and Astra, holding 69.5 percent of total spending. Teams budgeting for AI can compare their per-employee spend with the $16.32 typical-company figure and the $10,200 top-one-percent median, keeping in mind the sample's skew.

How solid is it

The index draws on payment data from more than 85,000 US companies, which is a large sample, but The Decoder notes that Ramp's data reflects market trends and is not necessarily representative. Free AI tools and personal-account usage may be missing. The customer base skews growth-oriented, tech-savvy and larger than US businesses overall, so adoption is likely overstated. The Decoder is reporting Ramp's figures and Kharazian's analysis, and the interpretations about SpacexSI, falling prices and chatbots are the outlet's own. The source does not state whether the $16.32 typical-company figure is a median or a mean.

Risks and caveats

Token volume and spending metrics come only from companies using Ramp Token Spend Management and are not representative of overall AI spending on the platform. SpacexSI's 6.3 percent share most likely does not reflect the broader market, and its growth is probably driven by Cursor rather than by Grok. The customer support rise is described as possibly driven by AI chatbots, which is not confirmed. The source gives no dollar totals for overall US corporate AI spending or for OpenAI and Anthropic revenue, so the percentages cannot be turned into absolute amounts.

“Ramp's data reflects market trends but isn't necessarily representative.”

— The Decoder, on the Ramp AI Index