AI spend reportGrowth you can see. Spend you can't predict
AI adoption across Payhawk’s European customer base kept climbing through H1 2026, and it changed who gets paid. A disproportionate share of spending came from a relatively small group of companies, which can make AI spend harder for finance teams to see clearly: 20 of the 28 European finance leaders we surveyed said it came in above budget last year.
What’s inside
Where is AI spend going?
Anthropic, OpenAI and Cursor take 93% of spend, while tools like ElevenLabs and Lovable are used by around a fifth of companies despite each taking under 1%
Which tools are growing fastest?
Median spend is rising most on tools used to build and manage AI, like Replicate and LangSmith, and on newer uses such as AI agents and video generation, an early indication of where adoption may head next
How does company size change the AI bill?
Spend per head falls from €116 to €11 as companies grow, and general-purpose models scale with headcount while single-purpose tools don’t
Who spends the most?
The UK drives 30% of AI spend across 20 markets, and the top 1% of companies put 30% of their spend into coding
What do finance leaders expect next?
25 of 28 expect to increase their AI budgets again, followed by three things to do next