Ramp data shows slower AI tool spending growth in August

In short: New spending data from Ramp suggests business adoption of paid AI tools grew only slightly in August, and big spenders spent less per employee.

What's going on

Ramp, a payments company, tracks what its business customers pay for, including AI products. In August, 56% of Ramp customers paid for AI tools, up just 0.4% from July, based on data from about 70,000 companies.

Ramp says it has seen this kind of late-summer slowdown before. Last year, its AI index showed little to no growth from August to October, then picked up again toward the end of the year.

Another shift stood out in August. AI spend per employee fell nearly 10% among the top 1% of firms in Ramp’s sample, dropping to $7,205. Ramp’s economist Ara Kharazian said vacations may be part of the story, but falling prices also matter.

A key reason is that “tokens” are getting cheaper. Tokens are the small chunks of text that AI systems count when they bill you, like a taxi meter that clicks up as you ride. Ramp says average token costs fell to about $0.68 per million tokens, down from a March peak of $1.15 per million, after price cuts from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Ramp also notes that some customers are choosing older, cheaper AI models instead of newer, more powerful ones.

What to watch

Ramp’s customers skew more tech-focused than the average business, and the US Census Bureau recently reported only 22% of businesses say they use AI. Still, Ramp’s data is one of the few direct looks at real spending, so watchers will be looking to see whether spending rises again after summer, or if lower prices and slower growth become the new normal.

Source: TechCrunch AI