Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok published a note arguing that AI has so far delivered no measurable bottom-line benefit outside the technology industry. Slok looks at what he calls the S&P 493 — the S&P 500 minus Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla — and says profit margins and revenue per worker appear flat, with no evidence that AI is improving productivity. “Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech,” he wrote.

Slok is skeptical that non-tech companies will catch up. He argues it will be tough for corporate America to turn increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins. “AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment,” he wrote, adding that AI does not understand accountability, trust, culture, unwritten rules, ethical trade-offs or fairness, all of which shape reputational risk and ultimately drive revenue growth and profit margins. Recent studies have also found that AI has yet to deliver significant productivity gains.