US companies are spending less on AI, according to the latest Ramp AI Index from Ramp economist Ara Kharazian. He points to price cuts on top models and to cheaper, more efficient standard and lite models. Kharazian says the drop comes almost entirely from competition between OpenAI and Anthropic. Usage has climbed about 50 percent since spending peaked in July and hit a record high at the end of September.

Open-source models still make up less than five percent of business spending, Kharazian says. In the last week of September covered by the data, Anthropic took 51 percent of token spending and OpenAI took 44.5 percent.

The Ramp AI Index tracks transaction data from more than 70,000 US companies, and its token data comes from a subsample. According to Kharazian, the analysis only covers API spending and skews toward large AI customers. This isn't the first decline, but it has lasted unusually long. Spending peaked in July.

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