Ara Kharazian
Economist, Ramp
Ara Kharazian is an economist at Ramp. His writing and analysis of AI, business spend, and the economy has been covered in the New York Times, NBC News, ABC News, NPR's Planet Money, Bloomberg, the Guardian, Vox, Axios, and more. Ara previously led economic research at Square and developed Square Payroll Index, which became one of the key public datasets used to track restaurant worker wages, tips, and overtime in the United States. He was previously an economic consultant at Cornerstone Research.
Education
Tufts University
Expertise
AI trends, macroeconomic forecasting, labor economics, business dynamism
Highlight
Can identify any Beatles song with just the first second of sound
Articles by Ara Kharazian
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Trends in data enrichment vendors (Q1 2025)
Many companies rely on data-enrichment vendors to tangibly grow their business. This happens in two ways: 1) build data sets of companies and contacts, and 2) enhance existing datasets with new information. These datasets are in turn used to enhance GTM systems, score accounts, generate leads, and influence sales decisions.
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Are businesses actually using DeepSeek?
The Chinese artificial intelligence start-up’s new low-cost AI model triggered a selloff in U.S. tech stocks last month. But for all the commotion, DeepSeek didn’t come close to our list of trending vendors. Ramp’s latest estimate of the top AI vendors shows, as of the end of January 2025, only 0.2 percent of U.S. corporations have used DeepSeek.
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Top Saas Vendors on Ramp (Feb 2025)
Every month, billions of dollars get processed on Ramp cards for business expenses. And every month, we share the new vendors that customers are purchasing for the first time, to give you a glimpse into emerging market trends, companies on the rise, and much more.
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Top SaaS vendors on Ramp (March 2025)
Every month, billions of dollars get processed on Ramp cards for business expenses. And every month, we share the new vendors that customers are purchasing for the first time, to give you a glimpse into emerging market trends, companies on the rise, and much more.
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Trends in alcohol spending: Businesses, employees cut back
Alcohol spending is declining. Is this shift purely consumer-driven, or is it reshaping the American workplace too?
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Why I joined Ramp (and why Ramp needs an economist)
Earlier this month, I joined Ramp. I’ll be the first member of a team dedicated to producing public-facing economic research with first-party data from Ramp.