Research from the Ramp AI Index shows that the top one percent of AI-adopting American businesses, described as “AI-pilled” firms, are spending $7,500 per employee each month on artificial intelligence, with that figure growing 14 percent month-on-month. The findings come as executives at Nvidia and AI recruitment startup Mercor have publicly noted that compute costs are approaching or exceeding employee compensation at some organisations.
The broader picture remains more modest. The top ten percent of firms spend around $611 per employee monthly, while the median sits at approximately $11, roughly the cost of a single enterprise plan seat. Heavy AI users tend to combine multiple frontier models with cheaper open-source alternatives accessed through aggregator platforms, suggesting cost management is already shaping enterprise AI strategy.
