Leading Indicaators LogoData-driven stories on the business news shaping tomorrow

The "basic business" economy

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead

Delta’s Basic Business class offering is a K-shaped signal. Plus, the death of tokenmaxxing and the rise of "valuemaxxing."

Stay ahead of the curve with Leading Indicators

Get data-driven insights on the business news shaping tomorrow in our weekly letter.

Unsubscribe anytime.

Editor's picks

The job market paradox, plus AI spending caps

The labor market paradox is hitting small businesses the hardest. Plus, what Ramp data reveals about per-employee AI spend.

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead
Novak, PE, and the sports-finance love affair

Djokovic’s PE partnership highlights the sports-finance tie. AI isn’t killing hiring, new Ramp research shows. Plus, the "FIFA premium" in corporate travel.

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead
Home is where the start isn't

U.S. housing starts plunged more than 15% in May from April, unexpectedly sinking new homebuilding to a six-year low. Here's what that signals for the economy.

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead
The open (AI) price wars

OpenAI is reportedly weighing slashing what it charges for tokens. The next phase of the AI wars could be fought on the pricing field. There's not much yardage.

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead
What rising rate hike odds could mean for AIPOs, from OpenAI to SpaceX

Future borrowing costs help predict whether AI players like Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX can sustain their lofty valuations as they prepare to IPO.

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead
The tokenmaxxing comedown: companies grapple with the AI FOMO premium

Many companies have been in a “move fast and spend tokens” phase. Now, some are realizing they may have moved too fast. A pullback is coming.

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead
Salesforce reports earnings as companies layer AI workflows over SaaS systems of record

While incumbents are holding the system of record, several AI-natives are seeing breakout growth in adjacent workflow layers and entirely new categories. 

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead
The "AI evangelist" exponent

PE partnerships and evangelist hires could supercharge AI adoption.

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead
The AI race has a new frontrunner but no clear winner

AI model providers have minimal switching costs. That can be good, allowing for surging adoption in a short time span, but it also leads to low loyalty.

Rebecca Moretti
Editorial Lead
The “pure manager” layoffs: how AI is reshaping middle management

AI is reshaping the manager role. This reorganization is creating a growing class of “megamanagers,” leaders with a greater number of direct reports.

Gayatri Sabharwal
Content Marketing
Top SaaS Vendors on Ramp (May 2026)

AI inference platforms and web deployment tools dominate this month’s list of the fastest-growing SaaS vendors among Ramp customers.

Ara Kharazian
Lead Economist, Ramp
The next AI frontier: robots

The headlines around robotics suggest we might be on the cusp of the next AI frontier.

Gayatri Sabharwal
Content Marketing
Less panic, more data: how will AI impact your job?

OpenAI and Anthropic released reports on AI’s labor impact within days of each other. Learn about the key takeaways from the research.

Gayatri Sabharwal
Content Marketing
How AI gets built: Jaya Gupta

Foundation Capital's Jaya Gupta discusses context graphs and what they unlock for finance.

Gayatri Sabharwal
Content Marketing
What it takes to build AI agents at scale

Builders from Modal, turbopuffer, and Ramp talk about building deterministic evals, scaling compute for RL, and maintaining design simplicity.

Gayatri Sabharwal
Content Marketing
What CFOs actually need from a bank account

Finance leaders explain why the bank account isn’t the problem — it’s everything around it. It's not built for the day-to-day work of tracking and moving money.

Suman Bhattacharyya
Contributing Writer, Ramp

Latest stories