Top 1% of companies outspend top 10% on AI by 8x, a16z data shows
a16z · x · 2026-10-01
AI spending is rising across companies, but power users are pulling away, says a16z's Sarah Wang. Citing YipitData, she notes that median AI vendor spending among the top 1% of companies is roughly 8x the level of the top 10%.
Anecdotally, even within a16z's own portfolio companies—largely AI-native—the top users spend around $7,500–9,000 per month, which is over 20x the median user's spend. More charts are available in a16z's State of Markets II report.
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