UK study: paid AI subscriptions top £1B a year as Claude’s spend share nearly quadruples in seven months

A working paper built from UK open-banking and card transactions finds that by June 2026 about 5.1% of UK adults—roughly 2.8 million people—held a paid AI subscription, with consumer spending running at more than £1 billion a year. From December 2025 to July 2026, OpenAI’s ChatGPT share of direct subscription spending fell from 73.5% to 52.5%, while Anthropic’s Claude rose from 7.4% to 29.4%. Among Claude subscribers, 6.2% pay for plans costing £80 or more a month, against 0.3% of ChatGPT subscribers.

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