I tracked which AI models people actually use for a month. The top 5 are all Chinese or open-weight.

Everyone argues about which AI model is "best" using benchmarks. I wanted to know something simpler: which models do people actually run in production, when they pay per token and can pick anything? So I started tracking OpenRouter's published usage rankings every day. OpenRouter is a neutral marketplace: developers route requests to whatever model they want and pay by the token, so the rankings are a real, money-on-the-line signal of demand. Here is what the last 7 days look like, by token…