AI agents use 5x more tokens than humans, per OpenRouter data
AI agents consumed 7.3 trillion tokens in August, five times more than humans’ 1.4 trillion, according to data from OpenRouter, a model routing platform. The figures, cited by Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), show agents rely heavily on cached prompts—85% of their token usage comes from repeating existing data rather than generating new responses. OpenRouter’s…
Key points
- AI agents used **7.3T tokens** in August, five times more than humans’ **1.4T**, per OpenRouter data
- **85% of agent tokens** come from cached prompts, not new generation, per Andreessen Horowitz
- Memory demand for cached tokens strains GPU HBM, with Micron warning of shortages in 2027–2028
The story so far
4 episodes →- AI agents use 5x more tokens than humans, per OpenRouter datathis story
AI agents use 5x more tokens than humans as cached prompts explode, headed for 10x
Tom's Hardware · 3 October 2026
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