AI spend is accelerating faster than agent adoption suggests
Stripe’s Link digital wallet processes payments for millions of consumers, and the company recently examined how those users are spending on AI products. Among 394 Link customers surveyed, 80% had used a chat-based agent in the past month, and half said they used AI for shopping research at least monthly. But survey responses only tell part of the story; the transaction data across 250 million Link customers shows that real money is moving into AI at an accelerating rate.
High spenders nearly doubled their AI outlay in a single quarter
Stripe grouped Link customers by monthly AI spend and tracked changes over time. The top 10% of spenders increased their monthly outlay from $183 in December 2025 to $359 in March 2026—a near-doubling in three months. The same cohort had previously taken 22 months to grow from $84 to $183, so the pace of acceleration is striking. Even at the 50th percentile, monthly AI spending rose from $60 to $72 over the same three-month window.
App-builder platforms are seeing the steepest climb
The growth is more pronounced when isolating spending on AI app-builder platforms such as Replit, Lovable, and Bolt. The top 10% of Link customers by AI spend now pay 5x more per month on those platforms than they did in January 2025.
From research to transaction-ready agents
The survey indicates agents are already a fixture in shopping research, and the spending data suggests users are willing to pay for tools that let them build and deploy those agents. As they grow more capable, agents will need to transact directly with businesses and with each other. Stripe has responded with Link’s wallet for agents, which gives customers a way to authorize agents to pay on their behalf under spending controls, while agents get broad purchasing access across Stripe sellers and businesses receive verified transactions without complex integration work. The data implies that capability is arriving at the right time, as AI spending—and the underlying infrastructure spend—shows no sign of leveling off.
