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. For providers like OpenAI and Anthropic, the question is whether volume growth is fast enough to make up for falling prices.

OpenAI researchers spend heavily on AI coding agents, with top users burning through $7,000 daily in tokens.

Falling token costs, cheaper models, and less spend per employee—AI adoption isn't playing out the way hyperscalers hoped.