There’s been a surge in AI use recently. Here’s what’s behind it.

AI demand has surged in recent weeks, according to new data that could support tech giants’ decisions to dramatically ramp up investment in this area.

OpenRouter, which helps developers access different AI models, has seen activity roughly double in the first weeks of 2026.

This is measured by the number of AI tokens OpenRouter processes. AI models break down words and other inputs into numerical tokens to make them easier to process and understand. One token is about ¾ of a word.

OpenRouter handled 13 trillion AI tokens in the week that ended February 9. That’s up from 6.4 trillion during the first week of January.

Seen over a year, this recent surge is even more striking. AI models that OpenRouter taps into include Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s GPT range, and a host of open-source offerings from DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and others.