U.S. Internet: Charts Worth a Look: A Closer Look At AI Token Mix From Vercel AI Gateway Data

Research evidence excerpt

U.S. Internet: Charts Worth a Look: A Closer Look At AI Token Mix From Vercel AI Gateway Data

Equity Research

18 June 2026

U.S. Internet

Charts Worth a Look: A Closer Look

At AI Token Mix From Vercel AI

U.S. InternetGateway Data

POSITIVE

Vercel data provides a look into how AI models are being used U.S. Internet

Ross Sandlerby startups, showing the divergence between model spend

and token share. Unsurprisingly, frontier tokens still capture +1ross.sandler@barclays.com415 263 4470

the highest spend share, while flash/open-source models are BCI, US

generating more tokens at lower spend levels. Alex Hughes

+1 212 526 3069

alexander.hughes@barclays.com

The following company is privately held and not under coverage by Barclays BCI, US

Research: Vercel. Information about this company is being provided for information purposes only Michael DiSanto

and is not an investment recommendation by Barclays Research. +1 212 526 1054

michael.disanto@barclays.com

The Key Takeaway: Last week Vercel published its AI Gateway Production Index May 2026 BCI, US

update. The AI Gateway data provides insight into how tens of trillions of tokens are routed

Owen Clendeninbetween production apps and AI labs. While the data isn't a perfect proxy for the entire AI

+1 212 526 7518

market, it is useful for looking at how AI-native developers are routing model and token usage

owen.clendenin@barclays.com

today. Many of our larger Internet coverage companies are likely building internal capabilities BCI, US

similar to what AI-native startups are doing, whereby proprietary orchestration layers help

Alexander Kessingermove mission-critical workloads to more expensive frontier models, and the lower level

+1 212 526 1324

workloads to cheaper "flash" and open-weight alternatives.