From transactional data acquired by finance firm Ramp, OpenAI looks to be flying ahead in the race to control firms' AI spend.

Hyperlinking to Ramp's AI Index, a tool which estimates the rate at which AI products are getting adopted by businesses using Ramp's credit card and bill payment data, it appears that 32.4% of US businesses were spending on OpenAI tools and services as of April. This shows a considerable increase from 18.9% in January and a slight surge from 28% in March.

Looking at the other side of the coin, rivals of OpenAI haven't been able to replicate the same success, says Ramp. Just 8% of firms subscribing to Anthropic's products as of the previous month, down from a lower 4.6% in January. Amazingly, from 2.3% in February to just 0.1% in April, the subscription rate for Google AI products dropped.

That OpenAI has been acquiring clients at a more accelerated pace than any other business on Ramp's platform is the crucial takeaway from a blog post published on Tuesday by Ara Kharzian, Ramp's Economist. Kharzian stated that the firm's AI Index shows OpenAI's adoption by businesses outpacing its competitors.

The above data is from the Ramp AI Index.Image Credits: Ramp

Although it needs to be mentioned that Ramp's AI Index isn't a foolproof tool. It examines a sample of spend data from approximately 30,000 companies, and because it considers AI products and services based on the merchant's name and line-item specifics, it might be overlooking expenses that get categorized under different cost centers.

Despite these limitations, the figures do indicate OpenAI could be intensifying its hold over the significant and expanding market for business AI.

Going by a report that OpenAI released in April, it has a business customer base of more than 2 million users. That's a significant increase from the 1 million users it had back in September. OpenAI foresees a substantial contribution to its earnings emerging from the enterprise sector. A Bloomberg report says that the company anticipates generating revenues of $12.7 billion this year and a whopping $29.4 billion in 2026.

OpenAI, which is not expecting any positive cash flow before 2029, is contemplating the idea of levying charges as high as thousands of dollars on its business clients for its specialized AI "agents." These agents are created to assist with research and software engineering tasks.