Business spending on AI tokens has slowed sharply, according to data from the spend-management company Ramp reported by TechCrunch on Friday 6 November, just as Anthropic prepares to go public.
What the Ramp data shows
Token spend grew 42% in July from the month before, then just 1.5% across August and September combined. It rose 8.9% from 23 September to 23 October. The top 1% of firms spend just below $10,000 per employee a month, slightly down from their summer peaks; the top 10% spend $600–1,000, and the median firm $12–15.
“Almost the entire spend on AI is from venture-backed, high-growth tech companies,” said Ara Kharazian, Ramp’s lead economist.
Prices are falling too
Part of the slowdown is price. OpenAI halved API prices for GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna in September, and Anthropic’s filing says its own price cuts reduced revenue growth by about $600m. Bloomberg reported that Anthropic’s potential valuation fell from $2tn in early October to $1.2–1.3tn, and that OpenAI lowered its proposed valuation to $1.25tn from $1.4tn.
What it means for founders and investors
If most AI spending comes from other venture-backed companies, AI vendors’ revenue depends on the venture cycle. Founders selling AI products should know how much of their pipeline is other start-ups, and test per-seat prices against a median of $12–15 a head.
Update, 10 November: Anthropic has since set an IPO price range of $70–78 a share. See our report.
Corrected on 12 November 2026: an earlier version of this article included figures and details that are not in the reporting it cited. They have been removed.
