Ramp Records Paid AI Adoption at Nearly 56% in September

Businesses making payments for artificial intelligence products or services accounted for 55.9% of the companies in Ramp’s September 2026 AI Index, according to Ramp Economics Lab. The measure records paid adoption within the businesses covered by Ramp’s data, counting a company when it registers a payment above zero for an AI product or service during that month.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis examined the spending-based measure in an October 19, 2026, FRED Blog post. According to the post, the index draws on corporate payments to AI companies but does not measure the intensity of use. It also excludes employees’ use of AI tools available without payment and AI capabilities built into other software.

Within the September data, Ramp put the share of businesses paying Anthropic at 43.8%, compared with 40.6% paying OpenAI. These provider figures are not mutually exclusive: a company paying more than one AI supplier can be included in multiple provider percentages.

Company size was another distinction in FRED’s account. Adoption increased across all three size groups it examined, but the pace was faster among medium-sized and large businesses. Small businesses continued to have lower adoption than either of those groups, according to the post.

The industry comparison placed information businesses first from 2023 onward, with software and publishing included in that category, according to FRED. Finance and insurance ranked next. The remaining groups, in the order FRED listed them, were manufacturing; retail; health care and social assistance; construction; and accommodation and food services.

For the longer-term context, FRED said adoption among businesses tracked by Ramp had increased following the public introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022. That timing does not establish that ChatGPT’s launch caused the increase.

* This article is based on publicly available information at the time of writing.