- Ramp data shows AI token spend grew just 1.5% combined across August and September 2026, down sharply from 42% monthly growth in July.
- Price cuts from OpenAI and Anthropic are capping revenue even as AI token usage keeps rising, Ramp’s lead economist said.
- The top 1% of AI-spending firms dipped slightly below the roughly $10,000-per-employee monthly peak they hit over the summer.
- Token spend re-accelerated 8.9% between September 23 and October 23, though Ramp says competitive pricing pressure remains strong.
What Happened
A new report from corporate card and spend-management firm Ramp shows AI spending flatlined in late summer 2026 even as token volumes kept climbing. Combined token spend grew only 1.5% across August and September, compared with 42% growth in July alone, raising questions about whether AI companies can keep growing revenue as fast as investors expect ahead of Anthropic’s IPO.
Why It Matters
“Almost the entire spend on AI is from venture-backed, high-growth tech companies,” Ramp’s lead economist Ara Kharazian told TechCrunch. He said a slowdown among the heaviest-spending firms is “sufficient to slow down revenue entirely, despite the fact that we’re seeing rising volumes,” a dynamic that could ripple through AI company valuations.
Technical Details
Median firms spend $12 to $15 per employee per month on AI, while the top 10% spend $600 to $1,000, per Ramp’s data. Kharazian attributed the stall to price competition rather than falling demand: OpenAI cut API prices in half for GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna in September, and Anthropic cut pricing on Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5, a move the company said in a recent filing slashed its own revenue growth by about $600 million.
Who’s Affected
The data points to a buyer’s market for enterprise AI, with Meta and Nvidia also pushing cheaper or open-source enterprise offerings into the mix. Kharazian said use cases outside software and finance, such as a doctor’s office or car dealership, aren’t necessarily going to reach the spending levels of the top 1% of AI-pilled companies.
What’s Next
Token spend partially recovered in October, rising 8.9% from September 23 to October 23, but Kharazian said the underlying pricing pressure remains strong. He called the current period a potential end to “the era of hypergrowth” in enterprise AI spending.
TechCrunch, November 6, 2026.
