Edward Conard

Top Ten New York Times Bestselling Author

  • “…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
  • “…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
  • “Unintended Consequences provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” - Nouriel Roubini, New York University; Chairman, Roubini Global Economics
  • “…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
  • “Unintended Consequences represents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the Financial Crisis to date.” - Andrei Shleifer, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal Winner
  • “…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • “…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute
  • “Unintended Consequences is far smarter and more thought-provoking than most economics written for the general public” - Greg Mankiw, Harvard University, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
  • “Unintended Consequences is full of substance, it is one of the must-read books of the year, and once I finish it I will be giving it a second read through right away.” - Tyler Cowen, Professor, George Mason University
  • “There are an amazing number of good ideas and interesting points made in Unintended Consequences. The thinking underlying it, and the obvious depth of understanding of the author, are very impressive.” - Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics; 2004 John Bates Clark Medal
  • “Unintended Consequences offers deep and well-argued analyses on almost every issue.” - The New York Times
  • “…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Upside of Inequality Oxford Unintended Consequences

AI Summary. Spending on Anthropic's largest and priciest AI model has plateaued at about 11% of total outlay on the company's tools, according to payments data from 70,000 companies, breaking a pattern of corporate users defaulting to the most powerful models. Analysts and investors cite its high price and older models' adequacy.

George Hammond Financial Times
Date Posted:

Ramp data suggest spending on Fable 5, Anthropic’s frontier model, has plateaued at ~11% of observed customers’ outlays on Anthropic’s tools. This is seemingly a behavior change – previously, corporate users defaulted to the most powerful available models.

Are businesses turning away from the priciest AI models toward cheaper ones?

Core argument: Spending on Fable 5, Anthropic's largest and priciest model, has plateaued at about 11% of total outlay on the company's tools more than two months after release, according to Ramp data covering 70,000 companies.

Spending on Fable 5, Anthropic’s largest and priciest model, has plateaued at only about 11% of overall outlay on the company’s tools, more than two months after its release, according to spending data from 70,000 companies collected by payments group Ramp. This breaks a pattern of corporate users defaulting to the most powerful models. Analysts and investors in Anthropic said the change was primarily driven by Fable’s high price and the fact that older models are capable of handling the bulk of business demands.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Spending on Fable 5, Anthropic's largest and priciest model, has plateaued at about 11% of total outlay on the company's tools more than two months after release, according to Ramp data covering 70,000 companies.
  2. Fable 5's limited uptake breaks a pattern in which corporate users default to the most powerful available models.
  3. Analysts and Anthropic investors attribute the shift primarily to Fable's high price and the ability of older models to handle the bulk of business demands.

Related Articles:

  • The AI Price Wars and Their Consequences — Artificial intelligence models are converging in capability and price, making switching easier and margins harder to defend, with US labs cutting prices on lower- and mid-tier offerings while keeping frontier models expensive. An 80% annual price decline requires 400% unit growth just to hold revenue flat, straining firms financing enormous capital spending.
  • OpenAI and Anthropic In Price War as Chinese AI Rivals Gain Ground — OpenAI cut its GPT-5.6 Luna prices by 80% and Anthropic launched Opus 5 at half the price of its Fable 5 model while cancelling a planned Sonnet 5 price increase. Headline token prices are not directly comparable, since more capable models can finish tasks using fewer tokens or attempts.
  • The AI Trade Is Losing One of Its Key Signals — An index blending artificial intelligence token prices and usage is ambiguous when it softens, since token prices have fallen more than 90% since 2023 while total spending has roughly doubled over the past year. Allianz Research measures a nearly 46% growth gap between artificial intelligence investment and sales, wider than the 32% divergence during the 2001 telecom bust.
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