AI delivers 'zero financial payoff' to most companies, Apollo economist says

Apollo economist Torsten Slok asserts that artificial intelligence has not yielded any financial benefits for most large corporations outside the technology sector, according to a recent note. Slok analyzed the S&P 493, which comprises the S&P 500 index minus leading tech companies Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla, discovering that profit margins and revenue per worker have remained stagnant, with no indication that AI is enhancing productivity.

Slok contends that despite extensive spending and widespread enthusiasm for AI, the technology has not generated any financial gains for non-tech firms. He doubts that "turning increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins" will be feasible for corporations in other industries. Slok argues that while AI can act as an efficient calculator, it lacks essential human qualities such as judgment, accountability, trust, culture, unwritten rules, ethical trade-offs, and fairness – factors that influence reputational risk and ultimately drive revenue growth and profit margins. Recent research also indicates that AI has not produced substantial productivity improvements.