AI Fact or Fiction: The Fable Ban, Tokenmaxxing, Saaspocolypse — With Ara Kharazian
6/17/202648 min
Ara Kharazian is the lead economist at Ramp. Kharazian joins Big Technology to discuss how much companies are actually spending on AI and whether that spending is producing real value. Tune in to hear why Anthropic has overtaken OpenAI among businesses, how AI spending varies dramatically from company to company, and whether “tokenmaxing” is really happening. We also cover Anthropic’s clash with the White House, the resurgence of DeepSeek, Google’s underrated position in AI, and whether the predicted SaaS apocalypse is materializing. Hit play for a data-driven look at which AI narratives are real, which are exaggerated, and where business adoption goes next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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First 90 secondsAlex Kantrowitz· Host0:00
How much are companies actually spending per employee on AI? Is AI winner take all? Is SaaS dead? And is Anthropic screwed after the Fable 5 dust-up with the White House? Let's get to the bottom of these questions, separating fact and fiction with Ramp lead economist, Ara Karazian, right after this. Depending on who you ask, between 80 and 95% of enterprise AI projects fail. To get AI to work for you, you don't need more tokens. You need better people. Aboard pairs powerful proprietary tools with senior engineers who've seen it all. That combination means your project doesn't stall, doesn't drift, and doesn't fall. It ships. Whether you're a startup that needs to get to market or an enterprise with complex legacy challenges, Aboard delivers exactly what your business needs fast. Aboard is your partner for AI transformation. Visit aboard.com and let's build something together. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed and nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. There are a lot of rumors flying in the AI industry, a lot of narratives flying in the AI industry, and what better way to attack these than to look at the actual data and separate the fact from fiction. Well, we're gonna do it today. We're gonna talk, of course, about how much companies are spending per employee on AI and whether token maxing is a thing. But we're also gonna get into the news of the week, which is whether the White House's Fable 5 ban, effectively putting export controls on Anthropic's model, will have a long-term damage looking at what happened the last time Anthropic had