AI\u2019s biggest spenders may be its least typical customers.
\nThat matters when founders use today\u2019s spending to imagine tomorrow\u2019s market.<\/p>\n
Ramp\u2019s October report says 1% of firms account for 80% of observed spending on OpenAI and Anthropic.<\/p>\n
Yet 55.9% of businesses in its sample paid for AI in September.<\/p>\n
Many businesses are buying.
\nA small group accounts for most of the spending on those two providers.<\/p>\n
The obvious question is whether the biggest buyers will keep paying.
\nThe less obvious question is what would make the smaller buyers spend more.<\/p>\n
Do they need better models?
\nOr help connecting AI to their systems, changing a workflow and demonstrating a return?<\/p>\n
Those are different problems. They create different businesses.<\/p>\n
A product designed around the needs of an intensive AI user may not solve what prevents an ordinary business from getting value.<\/p>\n
For founders, that is a reason to study modest-paying customers, not dismiss them.<\/p>\n
Find out what they tried, where progress stopped and what outcome would justify a larger budget.<\/p>\n
Ramp\u2019s data cannot tell us whether those customers will deepen their usage.
\nIt measures spending in its observed sample, not ROI across the economy.<\/p>\n
But it gives us a useful distinction.<\/p>\n
The biggest buyers show where money is flowing today.<\/p>\n
Understanding what holds the smaller buyers back may reveal where to build next.<\/p>\n
Krishna Lakamsani | Serial Entrepreneur | Investor | I write at the intersection of AI, capital, and the future of the human job market,\u2028sharing my life lessons, reflections, and honest takes from the founder-investor’s seat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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