AI agents use 5x more tokens than humans as cached prompts explode, headed for 10x
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. That number will accelerate to 10x and then higher and higher.” His data, an Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) chart of OpenRouter figures, shows agents at 7.3 trillion tokens versus humans’ 1.4 trillion as of August, six months after agent usage first surpassed humans. But the agents are mostly rereading what they’ve already seen: more than 85% of agent tokens come from cached prompts, a16z wrote, citing OpenRouter.AI is currently used by AI 5x more than it is used by humans.
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- ▪That number will accelerate to 10x and then higher and higher.” His data, an Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) chart of OpenRouter figures, shows agents at 7.3 trillion tokens versus humans’ 1.4 trillion as of August, six months after agent usage
- ▪But the agents are mostly rereading what they’ve already seen: more than 85% of agent tokens come from cached prompts, a16z wrote, citing OpenRouter.AI is currently used by AI 5x more than it is used by humans.
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| Publication time | Sat, 03 Oct 2026 13:10:00 +0000 |
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Tech Industry Artificial Intelligence AI agents use 5x more tokens than humans as cached prompts explode, headed for 10x — agents are mostly rereading what they've already seen, skyrocketing KV cache demand threatens already-worsening RAM shortages News By Shane Downing Published 3 October 2026 OpenRouter has agents at 7.3 trillion tokens versus 1.4 trillion for humans. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: OpenRouter) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman wrote in an X post that “AI is currently used by AI 5x more than it is…
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