Apollo Economist: AI Has Brought No Financial Payoff to Big Companies Outside Tech
Torsten Slok, chief economist at investment firm Apollo Global Management, says large US companies outside the tech sector have gained no profit benefit from artificial intelligence. He notes that profit margins and revenue per worker appear unchanged.
Torsten Slok, chief economist at private equity giant Apollo Global Management, has concluded in a recently published note that artificial intelligence has not improved the bottom line of big US corporations outside the technology industry. The finding matters because companies are investing heavily in AI, yet the returns are not yet visible beyond the tech sector. Apollo is a US investment firm that formerly owned TechCrunch.
What the analysis shows
Slok focused on what he calls the S&P 493: the S&P 500 stock index minus seven companies, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla. In his assessment, profit margins and revenue per worker at these firms appear flat, and there is no evidence that AI is boosting productivity.
"Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech," the economist said.
Are companies simply lagging behind?
Slok was skeptical of the idea that non-tech firms are merely trailing the tech giants. He argued that it will be hard for corporate America to turn increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins.
He also wrote that AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment. In his view, AI does not understand accountability, trust, culture, unwritten rules, ethical trade-offs or fairness. These factors shape reputational risk and ultimately drive revenue growth and profit margins.
The source adds that other recent studies have also found that AI has yet to deliver significant productivity gains.
