OpenAI’s Biggest Token User Burns Through 100B Tokens a Month

OpenAI’s top token user is using around 100 billion tokens every month.

The surprising part is that this is not even the biggest AI token user in the world. Sam Altman said OpenAI found someone outside the company using even more.

This gives a glimpse into how quickly AI usage is scaling inside companies. Tokens are becoming a new kind of operating cost, especially as businesses move from occasional AI experiments to always-on workflows, agents, customer support, coding, research, and internal automation.

It also explains why AI costs are becoming a serious issue. The more AI becomes part of everyday operations, the more companies have to think about token budgets, model efficiency, routing, caching, and whether the output is worth the spend.

The next wave could make this even more intense. Always-running proactive AI agents would consume tokens in the background instead of only when a person asks a question.

Source: https://www.axios.com/2026/06/02/altman-openai-top-token-user