Torsten Slok (Apollo): Outside the technology sector, AI has not yet reported anything to US companies

Turnover per employee and margins are increasing among the Seven Magnificents, not in the rest of the S&P 500: for Apollo's chief economist, tokens become a cost centre.

In its daily note, Torsten Slok, chief economist of Apollo, makes a severe observation: despite massive investments, AI has not produced any measurable financial gain for US companies outside of tech. It compares the "Mag 7" to the rest of the index, which it calls the "S&P 493": among the former, turnover per employee and margins increase; In the latter, both curves remain flat. Overall factor productivity, measured by the San Francisco Fed, also showed no effect of AI.

Tokens seen as a charge

In the absence of any impact on results, large traditional firms are now slowing down their spending on tokens as a cost to margins, not as an engine of growth. Venture capital-funded start-ups are consuming more and more tokens, but the economist believes that the rest of the market does not need the last model and refuses to pay the price; As long as AI remains confined to a small part of the economy, its macroeconomic effects will remain limited.

For Slok, the real question is whether these companies will turn cheaper intelligence into growth and margins. He doubted: judgment in cases depended on the context, trust, responsibility and tacit rules that AI did not control. According to him, the history of AI will be played in S&P 493, not among the tech giants.