HomeDemandEnterprise Adoption
App Categories: Penetration and Retention
AI Adoption by Category, Full Picture (August 2026 Cross-Section)#
Enterprise AI dollars are still concentrated in the model layer: foundation models at 82% stand alone, while agent-style apps like AI support and AI sales are barely starting.Draft, pending review
How to read this chart
Paying companies as a share of the whole sample. Foundation models 81.7%; content creation, the top tool category, 30.4%; AI support 3.3%, AI sales 0.3%.
Source: Ramp AI Index (public data); FinSight compilation · Updated 2026-09-04
Standalone page ↗d2-category-mon-01
Category Adoption, Year-Over-Year Change (Percentage Points)#
Every model-layer category grew year over year; three of eight tool-layer categories shrank, still short of the retention warning threshold.Draft, pending review
Source: FinSight compilation and estimates · Updated 2026-09-04
Standalone page ↗d2-category-mon-02
Category Adoption Over Time, Grouped by Path (Aug 2025 → May 2026 → Jul 2026 → Aug 2026, Back-Solved From the Official Change Field)#
The declining categories slid steadily rather than dropping in one month; their budgets are being absorbed by the model layer.Draft, pending review
How to read this chart
The source gives a single-month cross-section, but each category comes with one-month, three-month and one-year changes, so subtracting back from the current value yields four official points in time. Indexed to 100 a year ago. The five decliners: AI coding (79), AI support (81), software design (83), AI sales (84), vector databases (92).
Source: Ramp AI Index (public data); FinSight compilation · Updated 2026-09-04
Standalone page ↗d2-category-mon-03
Vendor Penetration Within Category: A Year Ago vs Now (Paired Bars, Back-Solved From the YoY Change Field)#
Category leaders are steady, slipping only a point or two in a year; the one exception is Midjourney in video and image generation, down 18 points.Draft, pending review
How to read this chart
At the vendor level only two points exist, now and a year ago: grey is a year ago, color is now (green up, red down), and the label is the change. The measure is penetration within the category, meaning the share of companies buying that category that use this vendor.
Source: Cursor public benchmarks; FinSight compilation · Updated 2026-09-04
Standalone page ↗d2-category-mon-04
Challengers and Big-Deal Signals: Switcher Capture Rate#
Companies that switch vendors most often land on Exa, which captures 65% of switchers; Decagon has few customers but big tickets.Draft, pending review
Source: FinSight compilation and estimates · Updated 2026-09-04
Standalone page ↗d2-category-mon-05
How Winner-Take-All Each Category Leader Is (Within-Category Penetration × New-Customer Share × Switcher Capture)#
Coding, search and content are each dominated by one player that wins 73% to 91% of new customers; only video generation's throne is wobbling.Draft, pending review
How to read this chart
Leaders of five representative categories. Cursor, Perplexity and Canva take 73% to 91% of new customers; Midjourney still has 47% penetration but lost 18 points in a year and wins only 18% of new customers, overtaken by HeyGen at 21%; Intercom takes just 22% of new customers, so the agent-support throne is still open.
Source: Cursor public benchmarks; FinSight compilation · Updated 2026-09-04
Standalone page ↗d2-category-mon-06