Ara Kharazian(@arakharazian):NEW from Ramp AI Index: AI spend *declined* among the top 1% of businesses spending on AI. In August, the top 1% of businesses spent $7.2K per employee per month, down 10% from a July peak ($8K). We're seeing more cracks in the AI thesis as a number of drivers show spend topping out. My take: it's not because of open Chinese models. It's model wars. Price cuts + a growing share of spend is shifting to standard and lite models (which are already cheaper) over the frontier.

Ara Kharazian

@arakharazian

Lead Economist @tryramp. I write and publish data on AI, business spend, and the economy at cc: press@ramp.com. Prev economist @square

Joined August 2018

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Ara Kharazian@arakharazian

2026.09.09 15:21

NEW from Ramp AI Index: AI spend *declined* among the top 1% of businesses spending on AI. In August, the top 1% of businesses spent $7.2K per employee per month, down 10% from a July peak ($8K). We're seeing more cracks in the AI thesis as a number of drivers show spend topping out. My take: it's not because of open Chinese models. It's model wars. Price cuts + a growing share of spend is shifting to standard and lite models (which are already cheaper) over the frontier.