Menlo models AI spending

Menlo’s November 3 report models $176.8 billion in annualized deployment spending as of September 2026, not January–September cash, despite the chart’s YTD label. Morning Consult surveyed nearly 400 US decision‑makers overseeing over $4 billion in AI spending, September 8–26, 2026. Production API shares weight reported workloads by AI spending; prior years reclassify data‑labeling vendors into development.[1](https://menlovc.com/perspective/2026‑the‑state‑of‑enterprise‑ai/)

Separate OpenRouter weekly API‑key token cohorts span September 1, 2025–September 28, 2026, skewing toward developers/startups. They cannot establish enterprise market shares or ROI. Menlo invests in Anthropic and OpenRouter; the page lacks microdata, confidence intervals and a fully reproducible model.[1](https://menlovc.com/perspective/2026‑the‑state‑of‑enterprise‑ai/) Document review, January 2022; archive, not Menlo research. Photo: [Shixart1985 / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AProfessional_woman_working_at_desk_with_laptop_and_documents_in_bright_office_setting.jpg), [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0). Resized and display‑cropped.