DeepSeek enters the fight for token volume, Anthropic continues to dominate spend
Executive Take
Teams now run two-tier AI budgets, cheap models for bulk work and frontier models for tasks where mistakes are costly. Leaders who still buy one model for everything are overpaying or underperforming somewhere.
Executive Summary
Vercel's May 2026 AI Gateway data shows DeepSeek V4's token share jumped from under 1% to 17%, making it the third-largest provider, while its spend share stayed near 1% due to low pricing. Anthropic's spend share grew from 61% to 65%, capturing 70-80% of spend in high-stakes use cases. Overall token volume rose 20% and total spend rose 43% month over month.
Why It Matters
AI and technology leaders should care because model routing, not model loyalty, is now the lever that controls AI spend. Anthropic still owns the high-stakes budget even as cheaper rivals eat volume.
Bizquad Perspective
The real story isn't DeepSeek's cheap tokens, it's that buyers now trust a low-cost model enough to ship it, which is the moment pricing power starts shifting from frontier labs.