AI Spending Growth Stalls as Anthropic Nears Its IPO

Companies are using artificial intelligence tools more than ever, but the money they spend on those tools has stopped growing at the pace Wall Street expected. New payment data from corporate card company Ramp shows AI token spending rose just 1.5% across August and September, a sharp slowdown from the 42% monthly growth recorded in July, according to TechCrunch.

The slowdown lands as Anthropic prepares for its initial public offering, raising questions for investors who have priced AI companies on the assumption of continued breakneck revenue growth.

What does the Ramp data actually show?

Ramp tracks corporate card and bill-pay transactions, giving it a window into how much businesses spend on AI tools month to month. Ara Kharazian, Ramp's lead economist, told TechCrunch that token volume — the actual amount of AI usage — kept rising through the summer. Spending did not keep pace.

Why did spending flatten while usage went up?

Kharazian said the gap comes down to price cuts, not weaker demand. In September, OpenAI cut API prices in half for its GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna models. Anthropic answered with price reductions on its Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5 models — a move the company said in a recent filing cut roughly $600 million from its revenue growth, per TechCrunch. Enterprise discounts meant to lock in long-term customers are also working against both companies' near-term revenue targets, Kharazian said.

Who is still spending the most on AI?

The top 1% of Ramp's business customers — mostly venture-backed tech firms — drive almost all AI spending, Kharazian said. Those firms peaked near $10,000 per employee per month over the summer but slipped slightly below that mark in August and September. Median firms spend far less, between $12 and $15 per employee per month, and the top 10% of spenders land between $600 and $1,000. Growth among those two groups wasn't enough to offset the pullback at the very top.

By the numbers

• July month-over-month token spend growth: 42%
• August–September token spend growth: 1.5%
• October 23 vs. September 23 token spend growth: 8.9%
• Top 1% of firms, peak spend: near $10,000 per employee/month
• Median firms: $12–$15 per employee/month
• Top 10% of firms: $600–$1,000 per employee/month
• Revenue growth cut tied to Anthropic price reductions: about $600 million

What does this mean for Anthropic's IPO?

"Almost the entire spend on AI is from venture-backed, high-growth tech companies," Kharazian told TechCrunch. "That's fine as long as AI spend continues to rise, but if it starts to slow down because of something in the market or some other factor, they will all start to slow down simultaneously, and that could lead to other cascading effects." He added that industries outside software and finance — he named a doctor's office or a car dealership as examples — may never need to spend at the level the top 1% currently do.

What should businesses and investors watch next?

• Whether October's 8.9% rebound continues into November and December.
• Whether OpenAI or Anthropic announce further price cuts tied to competition.
• Anthropic's IPO filings for updated revenue growth figures.
• Spending patterns among median-size firms outside the tech sector.

Glossary

• Token: A unit of text an AI model processes; token volume measures how much AI is actually being used.
• API: Application programming interface; the system businesses use to plug AI models into their own software.
• Enterprise discount: A reduced price offered to large business customers, often to secure long-term contracts.
• Hypergrowth: Sustained, very rapid revenue or usage growth, the pace investors have assumed AI firms will keep hitting.