The number everyone quotes about AI budgets is not the number you compete with.
The Ramp AI Index, published on 12 August 2026, reports that in July the top 1% of US businesses spent a median of $7,400 per employee on AI. The top 10% spent $650. The median firm spent $11.95. In the same index, 43.5% of US businesses paid for Anthropic subscriptions or tokens, ahead of OpenAI at 39.7%.
What this means for an independent hotel
- $11.95 per employee in a month buys a couple of seats on a tool. That is the market you are actually in, not the $7,400 headline.
- The distance between $11.95 and $650 is not budget, it is intent.
- Pick one task that eats hours every week, pay for one tool to do it, and measure the hours saved for 90 days before you add a second.
Do I need a big AI budget to compete? No. Half the companies in the index spend less per employee than a room service breakfast. What separates them is whether anything is actually running on a real task.
This content was created with the help of artificial intelligence and reviewed by Rafael Osborne (Profit Guest Services) before publishing.
