Where Businesses Spent Their AI Budget in June 2026

Aggregated Slash spend shows that AI tooling has become a distinct operating category, with spend concentrated in the major model platforms while adoption spreads across coding, creative, and workflow tools. Anthropic and OpenAI still represent the overwhelming majority of identified AI-platform spend, but OpenAI has gained significant share recently, and the broader AI-tool set now includes visible spend across tools for specific industries or

Methodology

This analysis uses aggregated, anonymized Slash spend data from card transactions and outbound payments.¹ Current platform shares use the trailing 30 days of identified AI-platform card spend from June 24th, 2026. Share-change figures compare that period with the prior baseline window, which covers roughly the three months before the trailing-30-day period (starting March 1, 2026). Month-by-month trend sections use a longer view from December 2025 through June 2026 month-to-date.

Platform-level analysis uses card transaction data, where merchant identification is strongest. Outbound ACH, wire, check, and RTP descriptors were reviewed, but vendor-level AI identification is much stronger on card rails. AI-platform matching is based on card merchant descriptors across model platforms, coding tools, creative tools, and AI workflow apps.

Key takeaways

Anthropic remains the largest identified AI platform:Anthropic / Claude represents about 55% of trailing 30-day identified AI-platform spend.
OpenAI has regained some market share.OpenAI / ChatGPT represents about 42% of trailing 30-day identified AI-platform spend, up roughly 31 share points versus the baseline. More startups and software companies are testing OpenAI / ChatGPT alongside Anthropic / Claude.
Recent increases in AI infrastructure spend:Infrastructure and developer-oriented tools represent the strongest growth in recent months.
AI spend remains elevated after a May spike.Indexed AI spend is still well above baselines from earlier in the year, even after coming down from a May peak.

1. Anthropic and OpenAI dominate identified AI-platform spend

The AI-platform mix is still concentrated around the two largest model platforms. In the trailing 30-day view, Anthropic / Claude accounts for roughly 55% of identified AI-platform spend, while OpenAI / ChatGPT accounts for roughly 42%.

The biggest recent shift is OpenAI’s share gain, which rose rapidly in the trailing 30 days. OpenAI / ChatGPT increased by roughly 31 share points versus the baseline period, while Anthropic declined by roughly the same amount.

Looking specifically at software companies and startups with heavy monthly spend on either OpenAI / ChatGPT or Anthropic / Claude, from December through April, the share of companies with significant spend on both platforms generally ranged from 0% to 16%, suggesting that most customers were either sticking with one provider or only lightly testing the other. Furthermore, during that period, companies spending only on Anthropic dominated companies spending only on OpenAI.

That changed in the most recent month. In June, 23% of active model-platform spenders were using OpenAI and Anthropic in parallel, up from 9% in May and 0% in April. More startups and software companies are testing the two AI frontier leaders in tandem; there are cracks forming in Anthropic’s dominance over the last several months, as it reached its lowest share of spend between the two since December 2025 this month.

Month	Both providers*	Anthropic only	OpenAI only
December	14%	14%	71%
January	0%	50%	50%
February	7%	67%	27%
March	16%	68%	16%
April	0%	76%	24%
May	9%	57%	34%
June	23%	48%	29%

*Both providers represents the percentage of Slash users that spent significantly on both OpenAI and Anthropic within the same month.

3. Shifting stacks on the fringes

Outside Anthropic and OpenAI, other platforms represent just 2.5% of shared AI spend.

Lovable is the largest named platform in the Other AI Tools group. In June, it represented roughly 38% of smaller-platform spend, making it the clear leader outside OpenAI and Anthropic. But Lovable was not a sudden June breakout: it was already the top smaller platform earlier in the period, including in December.

The more notable recent movers are Leonardo AI and Hugging Face. Leonardo AI rose to roughly 26% of Other AI Tools spend in June, making it the second-largest smaller platform in the latest month. Hugging Face also stood out: after representing only a small share through most of the earlier months, it reached about 13% of Other AI Tools spend in June. That suggests some recent smaller-platform growth is coming from AI infrastructure and developer-oriented usage, not only end-user creative or productivity apps.

There were also some downturns. Lovable, despite remaining in the top spot of overall smaller platform spend, declined significantly in June. Gamma has steadily declined; it represented nearly 29% of Other AI Tools spend in January, but now it June it sits at around 1%. Windsurf / Codeium also faded from earlier highs, declining from around 20% of Other AI Tools spend in January and March to about 7% in June.

4. AI spend remains elevated after a May spike

AI spend was steady through the first half of the year, but then spiked between April and May. In June, there was a pullback from May’s spike, yet the trailing 30-day AI spend index remains above the earlier baseline.

Though the May period was an outlier spike, the trend indicates it was not a one-off. AI spend appears to have reset to a higher ongoing level than earlier in the year.