Copilot Trap: a16z’s Bank Statement Exposes the Real AI Economy

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has just turned startup banking data into a mirror of the AI economy. Working with Mercury, which manages accounts for more than 200,000 startups, it released the first AI Spending Report, analyzing transactions from June to August 2025.

For once, the hype was measured not by valuations or headlines but by where real money flowed. The results were surprisingly grounding. OpenAI and Anthropic still dominate spending, while Replit sits close behind. Beneath them stretches a long, chaotic tail of copilots, assistants, and plugins, all fighting for the same monthly subscription slot.

When you look at AI through its receipts instead of its press releases, a different story appears. We are still living in the copilot era, a world built on tools that assist rather than replace human work.