a16z: Only 4.5% of US consumers pay for AI

Andreessen Horowitz's latest Top 100 AI list tracks actual US consumer spending for the first time. Nearly half of US consumers use AI, but only 4.5 percent pay for a subscription. The top one percent of payers spend about $900 a month, mostly on professional development and automation tools.

Why it matters: Revenue is concentrated in a small group of heavy professional users rather than the mass market, which helps explain why labs chase enterprise and agent products. It also adds context to reports that OpenAI revenue is well below earlier projections.