AI Spending Hits a Plateau as Prices Plummet

The Ramp AI Index, which tracks spending among over 85,000 US business customers, shows corporate AI investment reached a new high in October 2026. However, the month-over-month growth slowed to just 1.65%, indicating the initial hype-fueled spending boom is tapering off. The data reveals a stark divide: the top 1% of companies (mostly VC-backed tech, finance, and services firms) now spend a median of $10,200 per employee monthly, while the typical company spends only $16.32.

The big picture shows AI getting cheaper as competition intensifies. The average price per million processed text tokens dropped 21% last month, and usage volume is growing faster than spending. This paints a familiar tech industry scene: a market maturing into a commodity battle between giants like OpenAI and Anthropic, with adoption barely spreading beyond a narrow, tech-savvy elite. The growth is slowing, the prices are falling, and the story is becoming less about revolutionary change and more about incremental cost optimization.