‘AI-pilled’ firms spend $7,500 per employee each month on AI
Quick Answer
This paper shows that AI-focused companies are investing approximately $7,500 per employee each month on AI technologies, according to the Ramp AI Index.
Quick Take
AI-focused companies are investing approximately $7,500 per employee each month on AI technologies, according to the Ramp AI Index. This expenditure is currently comparable to an engineer's salary, indicating a significant commitment to AI integration in their operations.
Key Points
- AI-obsessed firms spend $7,500 monthly per employee on AI.
- This spending is on par with current engineer salaries.
- The Ramp AI Index highlights the trend in AI investment.
- Such investments reflect a strong commitment to AI integration.
- The trend may influence hiring and operational strategies.
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An Nvidia executive recently said that the cost of compute is now greater than the salaries of his employees. Last week, Mercor’s CEO said the startup is spending more on tokens for internal agents than on employee headcount.
As enterprises blow through their token budgets, a big question is: Are companies actually spending more on AI than on humans?
Not quite yet, according to fresh research from the Ramp AI Index, which measures the adoption rate of AI among American businesses. The top 1% of firms — which Ramp describes as “AI-pilled” — are spending $7,500 per employee per month. Whether you think that’s a lot or a little depends on your perspective, but it’s certainly not more than the roughly $16,000 per month the average software engineer makes.
And those are just the power users. The top 10% spend about $611 monthly per employee, and the median only spend about $11.38, or about the cost of a seat on an enterprise plan.
That said, despite pressures, AI spending is still rising. Among the AI-pilled firms, spend grew 14.1% per employee last month. It’s not yet clear if that trend will continue. The top 1% of firms tend to mix and match, opting to bounce between multiple frontier models and platforms that give them access to cheaper open source models.
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