AI spend up 177% since last year

Soldo has released the findings of its September Spend Index – revealing that spend on artificial intelligence (AI) has sky-rocketed by 177% compared to the same quarter last year.

The findings show a huge 835% year-on-year (YoY) increase in ChatGPT spend, highlighting a trend of UK businesses experimenting with new tools to transform operations, reduce administrative burdens and empower teams to achieve more.

Other AI tools also saw positive changes in investment, including Fireflies.ai, which produces meeting notes (556%), as well as the audio transcription tool, Sonix.ai, which saw a significant increase in spend (129). Claude.ai, a text and writing tool, has also emerged a significant contender since Soldo’s 2023 report, challenging some of the dominance of ChatGPT and highlighting a dynamic market where new technology can quickly gain a foothold. This is supported by further data from Soldo’s customers, who have embraced 36 new AI tools between them that were not in use just one year ago. However, the findings do also show tools that don’t meet the mark for businesses can drop down businesses’ spending priorities – as is the case for Jasper.ai, which has seen 36% fewer investments compared to the same time in 2023.

Soldo’s findings additionally demonstrate that finance teams are yet to realise the benefits of AI compared to other departments, with only 6% of AI spend going towards finance tools compared to 18% on image and video tools and 16% on marketing and SEO, which came out top. This suggests that marketing departments are still the top users of AI, following the trends of Soldo’s previous report.

Brandon Till, Head of Transformation at Soldo, says, “Artificial intelligence has the potential to totally transform business operations and is already doing so for many departments. However, the data from our Spend Index shows a clear disparity between teams known to be more open to experimenting with new tools, and those famous for their more traditional ways of working.

“Given the velocity at which new tools are being developed to help support and modernise finance teams, CFOs must start prioritising investment in technology. Doing so is not only important for the productivity, efficiency and wellbeing of the finance team, but is crucial for the business too, as the ability to speed up financial processes contributes hugely to business growth.”