Startups Pour Record Spend Into AI Infrastructure in 2025

Data from Brex's 35,000+ customers shows explosive growth in AI tools for coding, model orchestration, and voice automation, signaling a shift to foundational AI as core startup operating expense.

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Stacker is highlighting the recent publication of the 2025 year-end Brex Benchmark: The 50 Fastest-Growing Software Vendors of 2025. This comprehensive, data-driven ranking is based on anonymized spending patterns from over 35,000 Brex customers, offering a unique perspective on which software vendors are becoming essential to how modern teams operate and expand. The report provides a forward-looking, spend-validated view of the software landscape, moving beyond surveys to reveal real purchasing behavior.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of these shifts and identify the vendors shaping the future of software, readers are encouraged to access the complete Brex Benchmark report at https://www.brex.com/journal/brex-benchmark-december-2025. This resource offers detailed insights for founders, investors, and operators seeking to understand the acceleration of spend, momentum, and long-term adoption across various categories.

A key finding from the benchmark report indicates that AI has transitioned from an experimental phase to becoming foundational infrastructure within organizations. Companies are now restructuring workflows and dedicating significant budgets to artificial intelligence tools. Among the notable insights:

• Cursor's Performance: Cursor secured the #1 position, demonstrating approximately 1,000% year-over-year growth. This consistent monthly spending increase suggests that AI coding tools are significantly enhancing engineering velocity and budget allocation.
• AI-Native Dominance: The top ranks of the list feature a strong presence of AI-native companies, including OpenRouter, Kling AI, Retell AI, and Perplexity. This trend underscores AI's role as a core component of business operations rather than a supplementary solution.

The data analysis also revealed five prominent trends shaping the current software environment:

• Developer-Led AI Adoption: Developers are at the forefront of AI integration, with coding tools serving as a primary driver of the AI economy.
• Growth in AI Infrastructure: "Picks-and-shovels" AI infrastructure, encompassing model routing, orchestration, compute, and monitoring, is experiencing substantial expansion.
• Voice AI Usability: Voice AI has reached a point of practical application and is now being deployed in actual customer-facing workflows.
• Modern Developer Stacks: Contemporary developer tools are supplanting older systems, prioritizing speed, visibility, and interoperability.
• AI-Powered Meeting Solutions: Tools leveraging AI for meetings are transforming these sessions from time-consuming tasks into structured, actionable records.

This report offers an early signal of where investment, progress, and lasting adoption are accelerating, helping stakeholders understand which categories and vendors are likely to influence the next phase of software and AI innovation. Access the full report at https://www.brex.com/journal/brex-benchmark-december-2025 to explore these transformative insights further.

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SOURCE Brex