Anthropic dominates UK small business AI spending

There has been a massive surge in AI adoption, alongside a dramatic shift in provider preferences, with Anthropic surging ahead to capture more than half of all SME AI spending. This is according to research published by Capital on Tap which analysed internal business credit card transaction data from UK SME cardholders between Q1 2023 and Q2 2026.

The proportion of SME cardholders spending on AI tools has risen from 1. 1% in Q1 2023 to 12. 8% in Q2 2026, an increase of more than 1,000% in just over three years. The increase has been particularly pronounced over the past year, suggesting adoption is accelerating. While AI remains a relatively small proportion of overall SME expenditure at 0.

146%, the nearly 30-fold growth points to a real shift in how businesses allocate technology budgets. UK SME AI adoption and AI spending growth MetricQ1 2023Q2 2026Q1 2023 to Q2 2026 growth (%)Q1 2023 to Q2 2026 growth multipleShare of SMEs buying AI (%)1. 1%12. 8%1,064%11. 6xShare of card spend0. 005%0. 146%2,820%29.

2x Anthropic overtakes OpenAI to capture more than half of SME AI spend Anthropic, the company behind Claude, accounted for 54. 1% of AI spending among SMEs in the dataset by Q2 2026, compared with 27. 3% for OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

Top AI providers by UK SME spend and reach AI ProviderShare of AI spend %Share of AI-buying businesses that use this providerYoY spend growth (%)YoY spend growth multipleAnthropic54. 148. 93,930%40. 3xOpenAI27. 365. 2140%2. 4xCursor4. 43. 1500%6xReplit3. 92. 3760%8. 6xLovable3. 14. 21,010%11. 1xPerplexity1. 92. 41,050%11. 5xManus1. 31. 4710%8. 1xElevenLabs1.

14. 3300%4xFireflies1. 01. 6140%2. 4xHeyGen0. 51. 3370%4. 7xMidjourney0. 31. 510%1. 1x The finding is particularly notable because OpenAI remains the more widely used provider, reaching 65. 2% of AI-buying businesses compared to Anthropic’s 48. 9%. In 2024, Anthropic accounted for between 1. 6% and 6.

6% of SME AI spend across the year, while OpenAI held more than 70%. By Q1 2026, OpenAI still held the lead at 41. 8%, compared with 34% for Anthropic. Just one quarter later, Anthropic had moved ahead with 54. 1% of spend, representing a 40. 3-fold year-on-year spending growth. I’m hugely optimistic about what AI means for small businesses.

For most of my career the big companies had the edge: more people, more specialists, more budget. AI is closing that gap fast. A three-person firm can now do its own research, marketing, bookkeeping and customer service to a standard that used to need a department.

More than one in eight of the small businesses in our data are already buying AI tools, and the pace is accelerating, not levelling off. None of that means spending on autopilot, or using it without a second thought. AI has moved from a discretionary purchase to a fixed line in the budget.

More than a quarter of AI buyers now pay for two or more providers, and the balance between those providers can flip inside a single quarter. Review what you pay for, cut the duplication and be honest about whether each tool is earning its place.

The same care applies to how you use it: check its output, keep sensitive business and customer data out of tools you haven’t vetted, and don’t hand a model decisions that need a person’s judgement. A business credit card can help smooth the timing when several subscriptions land at once, but the real discipline is knowing what each one is doing for you.

– Damian Brychcy, Chief Executive Officer, Capital on Tap