Open-weight token share doubled in a year; agents now use 14x human tokens

Exponential View (Azeem Azhar) · rss · 2026-08-24

Exponential View's Monday data roundup highlights:

Open-weight inference tokens doubled in twelve months; the closed-to-open ratio is approaching 1:1, though closed-weight token volume also grew sevenfold over the same period.
Youth employment warning: employment of workers aged 22–25 in AI-exposed occupations is now 19% below trend, up from 15% last year.
Agent token dominance: AI agents overtook human token usage in February and now use 14x that amount, while human usage grew only 2.8x.

Full details are in their State of the AI Economy 2026 report; the team is also hiring an AI Economy Research Fellow.

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