--- title: "Top 1% of AI customers: spend per employee down 9.7% in August — Marsanne Studio AI watch" description: "AI spend per employee fell 9.7% among the largest customers in August, according to Ramp's AI Index." url: "https://marsanne.studio/en/ai-watch/top-1-of-ai-customers-spend-per-employee-down-9-7-in-19712b/" lang: "en" --- [Marsanne Studio](https://marsanne.studio/en/) [← Back to home](https://marsanne.studio/en/ai-watch) [← The AI watch](https://marsanne.studio/en/ai-watch) Data study · 10 September 2026 # Top 1% of AI customers: spend per employee down 9.7% in August Original title, in French: “Top 1 % des clients IA : -9,7 % de dépense par employé en août” **Publication** Brief IA (France) **Author** [Tom Levy](https://www.briefia.fr/auteur/tom-levy) **Published on** 10 September 2026 · read in the page structured data ## Summary Ramp's AI Index, which tracks US companies' spending on AI services, shows that in August 2026 median spend per employee fell 9.7% in the top 1% of customer companies, to $7,205, while it continued to rise in the top 10% and at the median. Usage is shifting from frontier models (Opus, Fable, Sol), whose share of tokens consumed fell from 53% to 45%, towards cheaper standard models such as GPT-5.6 Terra or Sonnet. The effective price per million tokens has dropped 41% since March 2026, to $0.68. Open-weight models remain marginal (6.4% of companies using AI on Ramp). Anthropic (43.8% of companies) and OpenAI (39.8%) are edging up, driven by IT and finance. Summary based on the full text of the article. [Read the article on Brief IA →](https://www.briefia.fr/article/top-1-des-clients-ia-9-7-de-depense-par-employe-en-aout) ## Figures cited - \-9.7 % Median spend per employee in the top 1% of AI customer companies (monthly change) US companies, top 1% of AI customers, August 2026 vs July 2026 > « Dans le top 1 %, la dépense médiane par employé a reculé de 9,7 % pour atteindre 7 205 dollars. » Source: AI Index de Ramp - 7,205 USD Median spend per employee in the top 1% of AI customer companies US companies, top 1% of AI customers, August 2026 > « Dans le top 1 %, la dépense médiane par employé a reculé de 9,7 % pour atteindre 7 205 dollars. » Source: AI Index de Ramp - \-41 % Fall in effective price per million tokens since March 2026 AI token market, from March 2026 to September 2026 > « Le prix effectif par million de tokens a diminué de 41 % depuis son pic de mars 2026, pour atteindre 0,68 dollar. » Source: AI Index de Ramp - 0.68 USD Effective price per million tokens AI token market, September 2026 > « Le prix effectif par million de tokens a diminué de 41 % depuis son pic de mars 2026, pour atteindre 0,68 dollar. » Source: AI Index de Ramp - 45 % Share of tokens consumed by frontier models (Opus, Fable, Sol) Early September 2026 > « La part des modèles de pointe comme Opus, Fable et Sol est passée à 45 % des tokens consommés début septembre, contre 53 % début août. » Source: AI Index de Ramp - 53 % Share of tokens consumed by frontier models (Opus, Fable, Sol), previous month Early August 2026 > « La part des modèles de pointe comme Opus, Fable et Sol est passée à 45 % des tokens consommés début septembre, contre 53 % début août. » Source: AI Index de Ramp - 6.4 % Share of companies using AI on the Ramp platform that use open-weight models Companies using AI on the Ramp platform > « 6,4 % des entreprises utilisant l’IA sur la plateforme de Ramp recourent à des modèles open-weight » Source: AI Index de Ramp - 3.6 % Share of all companies using open-weight models All companies tracked by Ramp > « et 3,6 % des entreprises au total, un niveau probablement encore plus faible en réalité du fait des mesures via des plateformes de routage » Source: AI Index de Ramp - 43.8 % Share of US companies that paid for Anthropic in August 2026 US companies, August 2026 > « En août, 43,8 % des entreprises ont payé pour Anthropic, en hausse de 0,34 point » Source: AI Index de Ramp - 39.8 % Share of US companies that paid for OpenAI in August 2026 US companies, August 2026 > « tandis qu’OpenAI a gagné 0,09 point pour atteindre 39,8 % » Source: AI Index de Ramp ## Classification **Country** United States **Company size** All sizes **Industries** Software vendors, IT services companies, telecoms · Banking, insurance, asset management, finance departments · All industries, or industry not specified **Companies** Ramp (study author), OpenAI (supplier), Anthropic (supplier) **Keywords** corporate AI spending, tokens, anthropic, openai, open-weight models, cost of AI Entry written by Marsanne Studio from the cited article, with the help of an AI model (claude-sonnet-5). The rights to the article and its illustrations belong to Brief IA and its author. Entry translated from French by Claude Sonnet 5.5.