AI spend per employee slumped at top firms in August — summer doldrums or a warning sign?

The adoption of AI tools by businesses slowed in August, according to spending data at 70,000 companies collected by the payments company Ramp. The latest survey shows 56% of Ramp customers paid for AI products in August, rising just 0.4% from the month before.

This isn’t the first time Ramp’s metrics have shown adoption slowing down. Last year, the company’s AI index showed little to no growth in adoption between August and October, only to have growth pick up again as the year finished.

Still, the extreme pace of the AI buildout means even small slowdowns can be cause for concern. The gobsmacking investment in AI infrastructure by frontier labs and hyperscalers rests on the hope that there is plenty of revenue out there to pay it back. Thus far, usage has grown steeply, particularly as software engineers adopted agentic coding tools — but if that adoption slows down, revenue is likely to slow as well.

Ramp’s figures may overstate overall adoption, thanks to the company’s techy clientele: An ongoing US Census Bureau survey of AI adoption updated on August 23 shows just 22% of businesses report using AI. Ramp’s survey isn’t necessarily representative of the market, but it’s one of the few direct spending data sets available and potentially a leading indicator.