The companies that were spending the most on AI just took their foot off the gas. Ramp’s September 2026 AI Index shows that median AI expenditure among the top 1% of spenders on its platform fell nearly 10% in a single month, dropping from roughly $7,976 per employee in July to $7,205 per employee in August.
The data, drawn from transaction records across more than 70,000 US businesses, paints a more nuanced picture than the usual “AI spending is exploding” narrative. Adoption keeps climbing, but the biggest checks are getting smaller.
The numbers behind the pullback
Paid AI adoption among Ramp’s customer base ticked up by 0.4 percentage points in August, reaching 56%. The top 1% of AI-spending firms were shelling out more than $7,200 per employee per month. To put that in perspective, the median corporate AI spend across all Ramp customers is approximately $12 per employee per month.
That 10% month-over-month decline among elite spenders could reflect several dynamics. Lead economist Ara Kharazian pointed to seasonal factors like summer vacations, which tend to suppress corporate activity generally. But he also flagged something more structural: prices are falling fast.
