There's not anything the OP is doing that is remotely impacting RAM that much.
Again, not internet strangers - MacRumors own guide on the matter, one more time... with plenty of videos and evidence of how these machines perform under load.
Most likely it's caused by Teams being a runaway process. I've seen this happen several times on my base 14".
Apple's high-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro offers the M1 Pro chip with 16GB of RAM as standard, but you can upgrade to 32GB of RAM for...
www.macrumors.com
I think you make a very good point, and this is useful information that helps people not spend unnecessarily on upgrades that make no difference whatsover, but just donate extra cash to Apple.
On the other hand, most of these initial batch of comparison videos tend to repeat each other using pretty much the same benchmarks and usage conditions, so unsurprisingly come to similar conclusions.
Now, however, that the new MBPs have been out several weeks, some people are finding that, under certain conditions, their experiences are not always quite the same. For example, large or many graphical edits, Teams, multiple displays. This is not to detract from the value of these comparison videos (in avoiding unnecessary expense), but can provide additional perspective, but hopefully not just additional confusion.
I would like to say: the 14-day Apple return period is fantastic, and people should take advantage of it more intensively. Rather than maxing out upgrades due to uncertainty and doubt: take your best guess at a more moderate upgrade, and try it for a week. Then you will know much better if you need to upgrade further. Unless cost is not very important, in which case go for it.