Companies are starting to PULL BACK on AI spending after costs spiraled out of control:

Weekly token consumption of Chinese AI models on OpenRouter has surged to ~18.5 trillion tokens, more than 3 times the US level of ~6.0 trillion.
This chart tracks usage across the top 9 AI models on OpenRouter, a platform that lets users access multiple AI systems, and serves as a proxy for real-world AI demand.
Chinese models have overtaken their US counterparts in token consumption since the start of the year, driven by cheaper energy costs and more efficient models that allow Chinese labs to undercut US pricing.
Meanwhile, major US firms, including Amazon, Walmart, Cisco, Uber, and Meta, are now capping AI usage internally after costs spiraled beyond budget.
Software company Workato saw its Anthropic bill surge 7 times overnight after switching from a flat subscription to pay-per-use pricing in May, exposing just how much AI usage had quietly been costing all along.
Goldman Sachs estimates AI agent adoption