Johannesburg – Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered “zero financial payoff” to most large U.S. companies outside the tech industry, according to Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management.
Technology consulting services
In a recent note, Slok wrote that AI’s financial benefits remain concentrated in the Magnificent 7 mega-cap tech companies, while the broader S&P 493 is seeing little to no improvement in key metrics.
“Revenue per worker is rising for the Mag 7 but is flat for the S&P 493,” Slok wrote.
“Profit margins are rising for the Mag 7 but are flat for the S&P 493.”
He added: “And there are still no signs of AI boosting productivity growth.”
The findings challenge the growing narrative that AI is already transforming corporate America.
According to Slok, mainstream companies are increasingly viewing token spending not as a source of growth but as a cost center that weighs on margins.
With no clear impact on the bottom line, many are pulling back.
Venture capital-backed companies continue to spend more on tokens, but mainstream corporate America “does not need the latest model and is unwilling to pay for it,” Slok wrote.
As long as agentic AI and token spending remain confined to a small part of the economy, he argues, the macroeconomic effects of AI will be “very limited.”
Looking ahead, the key question is whether mainstream corporate America can turn increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins, even as AI models become commoditised.
Slok suggests that may be harder than it sounds.
“AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment,” Slok wrote.
Judgment depends on context, he added, and the answer varies depending on which human or which model you ask.
Perhaps most importantly, Slok says 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.
“The bottom line is that the AI story will be decided in the S&P 493, not the Mag 7, and so far, there is no evidence that revenue growth or margins are improving outside the tech sector,” Slok wrote.
*This article was first published in our sister publication, techfinancials.co.za
