New Data Show Anthropic, OpenAI and Other Upstarts Are Eating into Software Budgets

AI Summary

New data shows that AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are increasing their share of software budgets among major tech consumers. Their combined spending rose to 8% from 1.4% in the past year, reflecting growing enterprise adoption of AI-driven software.

We’ve been reporting for months about how companies are shifting some traditional software spending to Anthropic and OpenAI. New data from procurement software firm Zip provides further evidence. AI providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, and Sierra accounted for 8% of spending by Zip customers in the 12 months that ended in August, up from 1.4% during the previous 12 months. Overall, their software budgets rose by a median of 13% during that period.  The dozens of customers included in the study had an average of 2,400 employees and spent $18 billion for software, including AI, over the past four years. Zip’s customers include Snowflake, OpenAI, Datadog, Cloudflare and AMD.