Apollo Economist Finds Little Sign Yet of AI Lifting Profits Beyond Big Tech

For all the money pouring into artificial intelligence, the rest of corporate America has yet to see it on the bottom line, according to a new note from Torsten Slok, the chief economist at the investment firm Apollo Global Management.

Mr. Slok’s argument, reported by TechCrunch on Sunday and cited by NBC News, rests on a simple split. He compares the handful of giant technology companies that dominate the stock market, often called the Magnificent Seven, with the remaining companies in the S&P 500, a group he calls the S&P 493. Profit margins, he writes, are rising for the first group and flat for the second.

His conclusion is blunt. In a line quoted by both outlets, he says the technology “has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech.” He also says there are still no signs that AI is boosting productivity growth, the measure economists watch most closely for evidence that a new technology is changing how businesses operate.

Neither report gives detailed figures from the note, and TechCrunch says only that Apollo published it recently. TechCrunch also disclosed that Apollo once owned the publication.

The note lands at an awkward moment for the industry. Technology companies are spending enormous sums on data centers, chips and electricity to build and run AI systems, and investors have rewarded that spending with soaring valuations. If the companies buying AI tools cannot show higher profits or output, skeptics argue, the business case for the spending eventually weakens, and the market’s enthusiasm could cool.

NBC News placed Mr. Slok’s comments alongside a major event in the industry: the AI developer Anthropic’s public filing for a stock offering, which reports rapid revenue growth but also cautions investors that its growth may not be sustainable.

There is a reasonable counterargument. Businesses are paying heavily for AI services, and the steep revenue growth reported by AI developers suggests many companies expect a return, even if it has not yet shown up in their margins. Earlier waves of technology, from electricity to personal computers, took years to appear in productivity statistics as companies reorganized around them.

Mr. Slok himself offered a reason for caution about how quickly that might happen. In a line reported by TechCrunch, he wrote that AI may be a great calculator, but that in business, intelligence is mostly a matter of judgment.

For now, his note gives investors a concrete question to ask in the coming earnings season: whether companies outside the technology sector can point to measurable gains from the tools they are buying.