Apollo chief economist finds AI has delivered 'zero financial payoff' to non-tech corporations
An analysis of the S&P 500 excluding major tech firms shows no evidence that AI investments have improved profit margins, revenue per worker, or productivity.
What happened
Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, published an analysis excluding Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla from the S&P 500 to examine AI's financial impact on non-tech corporations. His findings show that profit margins and revenue per worker remain flat across these companies despite massive AI investments and widespread hype. Slok argued that AI will struggle to translate into higher revenue growth and profit margins, characterizing AI as a calculator that lacks understanding of judgment, accountability, trust, culture, and ethical trade-offs that shape business outcomes. Recent studies cited in the report have also failed to identify significant productivity gains from AI deployments.
Context
The analysis isolates whether AI's documented value creation is concentrated in the technology sector or broadly distributed across the economy. If non-tech corporations cannot translate AI investments into measurable financial returns, this suggests either that implementation challenges are widespread, that AI's capabilities do not map to traditional business value drivers, or that the payoff period remains in early stages. The distinction matters for understanding whether AI represents a transformative but narrowly concentrated technology or a generalized productivity tool with economy-wide benefits.