AI is increasingly using AI to process data, with agentic token usage on OpenRouter jumping 14 times since February 6, 2026. According to OpenRouter analyst Peter Walker, this date may have marked the last time humans consumed more tokens than AI agents. Since then, token consumption by AI agents has grown from 0.51 trillion to 7.3 trillion, while human usage increased by just 2.8 times. This trend highlights the growing self-sufficiency of AI agents, which now operate independently for longer periods and initiate additional AI processes as needed. However, nearly 70 percent of agent token usage comes from cached prompts, which are billed at lower rates, meaning actual costs are not rising as quickly as the raw numbers suggest. OpenRouter’s focus on open-weight models, which are generally less token-efficient than those from OpenAI or Anthropic, may reflect broader industry trends. Token inflation has already begun with reasoning models, which take longer to respond even when unnecessary. | Image: OpenRouter
Source: thedecoder*
