An Nvidia executive recently stated that the cost of compute power now exceeds employee salaries. Meanwhile, Mercor’s CEO revealed his startup is allocating more to tokens for internal agents than to hiring staff.
According to new research from the Ramp AI Index, which measures AI adoption in American businesses, 'AI-pilled' firms—defined as the top 1% of adopters—are spending $7,500 per employee monthly. This is significantly less than the average software engineer's salary of around $16,000 per month.
The report also highlights that while the top 1% spend heavily, the average firm in the top 10% only spends about $611 per month per employee, and the median firm spends just over $11.38.
Despite these findings, AI spending is still on the rise among 'AI-pilled' firms, with a 14.1% increase in expenditure last month. These companies tend to experiment with multiple models and platforms, balancing between premium services and cheaper open-source alternatives.
