An executive from Nvidia recently stated that the expenses associated with computing now surpass employee salaries. Additionally, the CEO of Mercor noted that their startup’s expenditure on tokens for internal agents outstrips what they allocate for staffing.
As companies exhaust their token budgets, an important question arises: Are organizations actually investing more in AI than in their workforce?
Not just yet, based on new findings from the Ramp AI Index, which tracks AI adoption among U.S. businesses. The elite 1% of companies, labeled “AI-pilled,” are spending approximately $7,500 monthly for each employee. Whether this figure is deemed high or low varies by viewpoint; however, it remains below the average software engineer’s salary, which is around $16,000 monthly.
These figures represent only the most active users. The top 10% spend an average of about $611 per employee each month, while the median expenditure is only around $11.38, roughly the cost of an enterprise plan subscription.
Nonetheless, AI spending continues to increase despite challenges. For the “AI-pilled” firms, per-employee spending rose by 14.1% last month. It remains uncertain whether this pattern will persist. The leading 1% of companies typically diversify their investments, alternating between various top-tier models and platforms, which allows access to more affordable open-source alternatives.
