Top AI spenders cut per-employee costs by nearly 10 percent in August
Ramp's September AI Index shows top AI spenders' per-employee costs fell 9.7% in August as firms migrate from frontier models to cheaper standard models.
Ramp's September 2026 AI Index reports median per-employee AI spending at the top 1% of spenders fell 9.7% in August to $7,205, partly attributed to August vacations, falling token prices, and migration to cheaper models. The effective price per million tokens dropped 41% from its March 2026 peak to $0.68, and frontier models like Opus, Fable, and Sol fell from 53% to 45% of tokens consumed. Anthropic was paid for by 43.8% of US companies (up 0.34 points) versus 39.8% for OpenAI (up 0.09 points), while open-weight models remain marginal at 6.4% of AI-using firms.
- Median per-employee AI spend at top 1% of spenders fell 9.7% to $7,205 in August.
- Effective token price dropped 41% from March 2026 peak to $0.68 per million tokens.
- Frontier model token share fell from 53% in early August to 45% by early September.
- Only 6.4% of AI-using companies on Ramp run open-weight models; open adoption stays low.
- Anthropic paid adoption reached 43.8% versus OpenAI's 39.8%; IT and finance lead adoption.
- AI models
- GPT-5.6 TerraClaude Sonnet
From the original article
3 min read at the-decoder.com
The Ramp AI Index for September 2026 shows AI spending per employee among the top 1 percent of US companies fell nearly 10 percent in August. The price per million tokens has dropped 41 percent since March 2026, and companies are actively shifting usage away from expensive frontier models toward cheaper alternatives.
By Matthias Bastian · the-decoder.com
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