Apollo Economist Says AI Delivers Zero Financial Payoff to S&P 493 Companies

Artificial intelligence has produced no measurable boost to the bottom lines of large U.S. corporations outside the tech sector, Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Slok said in a research note. Slok examined the so-called S&P 493 — the S&P 500 excluding Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla — and found profit margins and revenue per worker essentially flat. "Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech," Slok wrote. He was skeptical that non-tech firms are merely lagging the tech giants, arguing it will be tough for corporate America to turn "increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins." Slok cautioned that business value depends more on judgment than computation: "AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment." He added that AI does not grasp accountability, trust, culture, unwritten rules, ethical trade-offs or fairness — factors that shape reputational risk and ultimately drive revenue and margins. Recent studies have likewise found limited productivity gains from AI.