Corporate America has invested heavily in artificial intelligence in the last few years.
So far, these efforts haven’t yielded much in the way of results, Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Slok wrote in a note Saturday (Oct. 24).
“Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech,” Slok wrote.
“Revenue per worker is rising for the Mag 7 but is flat for the S&P 493,” he added, referring to the “Magnificent 7” companies (Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla).
The note said that mainstream corporate America has begun “pulling back and starting to view token spending not as a source of growth but as a cost center that weighs on margins.”
Slok’s comments were flagged in a report by Bloomberg News on Sunday (Oct. 25), which noted that investors are closely following AI spending and the success of companies seeing a return on their expenditures as earnings season gets started.
Meta reported its numbers last week and said it expects to be even more aggressive in its AI-related capital expenditures, sending its shares down, the report added.
As covered here last week, Meta spent $34.9 billion on capital expenditures during its third quarter while reporting negative free cash flow of $2.1 billion.
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During an earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted the success of Meta’s Muse AI model, which has been set up by more than 10 million people in the U.S. and Canada in six weeks. Around a quarter of that group uses the model daily.
“Zuckerberg is betting Muse can do more than revive Meta’s AI ambitions,” PYMNTS wrote. “He wants it to become the business that makes those investments pay off. Whether it can generate enough revenue to justify the spending remains unproven.”
The Bloomberg report cited other areas of concern, like the collapse of an initial public offering by Australian data center company Firmus Grid when investors blanched at its targeted $30 billion valuation. Data center developer Nscale is also facing investor protest over the proposed value of its listing.
Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has followed the uptick in AI adoption in the corporate world. In 2025, only 7% of the executives surveyed were using or piloting AI agents, and 67% said they wouldn’t grant agents any access to company systems.
By 2026, 89% of executives were using agents in at least one part of the business and only 2% would deny them access.
“Here’s the fine print,” PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote in a recent column about the “agentic edge.”
“Most companies have let agents in the door but haven’t let them do much yet. Seventy-eight percent would let agents read company systems but not act on them. Another 18% would let agents carry out tasks with a human’s approval. Just 2% would let agents run routine work on their own.”
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