An Nvidia executive recently noted that the cost of computing power has now surpassed what the company spends on employee salaries. Just last week, Mercor’s CEO revealed that the startup is spending more on tokens for internal AI agents than on its actual workforce headcount. As businesses rapidly burn through their token budgets, a pressing question emerges: Are companies truly spending more on artificial intelligence than on human workers?

Not quite yet, according to fresh data from the Ramp AI Index, which tracks AI adoption rates across American businesses. The top 1% of firms—what Ramp calls “AI-pilled”—are spending about $7,500 per employee each month. Whether that figure seems high or low depends on your perspective, but it certainly doesn’t surpass the roughly $16,000 per month that the average software engineer earns. And these are just the heavy users. The top 10% of companies spend around $611 per employee monthly, while the median firm spends only about $11.38—roughly the cost of a single seat on an enterprise AI plan.

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Despite these pressures, AI spending continues to climb. Among the most AI-focused firms, monthly spending per employee grew by 14.1% last month. However, it remains uncertain whether this upward trajectory will hold. The top 1% of companies tend to mix and match their AI tools, frequently switching between multiple frontier models and platforms that offer access to cheaper open-source alternatives.