Ramp just released its latest data on LLM Model Spend data and it shows about what you’d expect … but it also highlights the strong momentum with Anthropic. Ramp itself has crossed a stunning $1B ARR and manages billions and billions of spend:
Summary & 2026-2027 Projections:
- Current landscape: OpenAI leads at 36.5%, Anthropic accelerating at 12.1%, with 44.5% overall business adoption
- Key insight: This reflects discrete AI purchases, not enterprise contract spending—Google’s 1% severely understates actual usage
- 2026 projection: Anthropic likely reaches 20-25% of business wallets, OpenAI plateaus around 40-45%, overall adoption hits 70-80%
- Strategic implication: Credit card data captures the “prosumer enterprise” segment—critical for go-to-market but incomplete for total market assessment
Bottom Line Up Front: OpenAI dominates discrete AI purchases at 36.5% adoption among U.S. businesses, but this credit card spending data tells only part of the enterprise AI story—and reveals a massive blind spot in how we measure AI market share.
The latest data from Ramp Economics Lab just dropped a bombshell on the AI industry’s favorite parlor game: who’s really winning the LLM wars? Based on business credit card spend data from U.S. businesses with paid AI subscriptions, we’re finally getting real market insight beyond the hype cycles and PR announcements. But there’s a crucial caveat every SaaS leader needs to understand.
The Critical Data Limitation: Credit Cards vs. Enterprise Contracts
This Ramp data tracks business credit card transactions for AI subscriptions—which means we’re seeing discrete AI tool purchases, not massive enterprise API contracts or bundled cloud spending. That distinction completely changes how we interpret these numbers:
What’s Actually Being Measured: SMBs buying ChatGPT Team, mid-market companies expensing Claude Pro, startups purchasing API credits on corporate cards. This is the “prosumer enterprise” segment—businesses making tactical AI purchases rather than strategic platform commitments.
What’s Missing in Data : Google’s 1% market share of Ramp spend suddenly makes sense. Most Google AI usage happens through existing Cloud Platform contracts, Workspace bundles, or massive enterprise deals that never touch a corporate credit card. Same logic applies to Microsoft/Azure OpenAI deployments and AWS Bedrock usage.
The Current Leaderboard: 44.5% Overall Adoption in the Visible Market
Looking at the share of U.S. businesses with paid credit card subscriptions to AI models, platforms, and tools:
- Overall AI Adoption: 44.5% – Businesses making discrete AI purchases (the visible iceberg tip)
- OpenAI: 36.5% – Dominates direct-pay subscriptions but this understates enterprise API usage
- Anthropic: 12.1% – Strong in subscription model, likely reflecting their direct-pay positioning
- xAI: 1.5% – Limited enterprise traction despite Musk’s platform, but quickly up from basically 0%
- Google: 1% – Severely understated due to bundled/contract spending patterns
- DeepSeek: <1% – Minimal commercial adoption despite open-source buzz
Forward-Looking Market Projections: The 2026-2027 Landscape
Credit Card Spending Projections:
- Anthropic: Could reach 20-25% of discrete spending by 2026, driven by continued enterprise subscription growth and their steeper velocity curve
- OpenAI: Likely plateaus around 40-45% in this segment as customers graduate to enterprise contracts and growth curve flattens
- Overall Adoption: Credit card-based adoption will hit 70-80% by 2027, but this represents the smaller, visible portion of total AI spending
The Real Market Reality: Total enterprise AI spending is likely 3-5x larger than credit card data suggests, with most volume flowing through existing cloud contracts and enterprise agreements.
The Strategic Blind Spot: Why This Data Matters Despite Its Limitations
Go-to-Market Intelligence: Even though this represents a subset of total AI spending, it captures the most important segment for most B2B companies—businesses making tactical, departmental AI purchases. This is where product-led growth happens.
Competitive Dynamics: Anthropic’s acceleration in this segment suggests they’re winning the “land and expand” battle. Teams start with Claude subscriptions, then enterprises negotiate broader contracts. That bottom-up motion is how software categories get disrupted.
Pricing and Packaging Insights: The fact that 44.5% of businesses are paying for discrete AI subscriptions (rather than just using free tiers) validates that AI has crossed the “willingness to pay” threshold. That’s crucial market validation for AI-first startups.
The API vs. Subscription Signal: This data tracks paid subscriptions, not API usage. That distinction matters enormously. Subscription growth indicates businesses are making institutional commitments to AI tooling, not just experimental API calls. This is the difference between pilot programs and production deployments.
Source: Business credit card spend data from Ramp Economics Lab tracking U.S. businesses with paid subscriptions to AI models, platforms, and tools through mid-2025. Data reflects discrete AI purchases, not total enterprise AI spending through contracts and cloud platforms.
