Apollo analysis finds zero AI financial payoff for US companies outside tech

Apollo Global Management, one of the world's largest investment firms, has published an economic analysis concluding that artificial intelligence has produced no measurable financial return for US companies outside the technology sector. According to Business Insider, Apollo partner and chief economist Torsten Slok wrote that "the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech."

The analysis, published on Saturday and widely circulated after reaching the front page of Hacker News, draws a sharp line between the small group of dominant technology firms benefiting from the AI boom and everyone else in the economy.

Where the gains are concentrated

Slok's report centers on the Magnificent Seven — established tech companies that include Nvidia and Meta — and finds that their revenue growth during the AI boom has not spread to other industries. Business Insider reports that he tracked three indicators: revenue per worker, profit margins and productivity growth.

The divergence is stark. Since 2022, revenue per employee at tech companies has climbed from roughly $550,000 to nearly $800,000, while the same figure for the rest of the S&P 500 has barely moved in seven years, sitting at around $550,000. Profit margins have surged for tech firms over the same period but have stagnated near 10% for everyone else. And across the wider economy, Apollo sees no dramatic acceleration in productivity growth of the kind AI optimists have predicted.

Token spending under scrutiny

Beyond the charts, Slok's framing points to a shift in how non-tech companies are treating their AI budgets. As quoted by Business Insider, he writes: "Mainstream corporate America is pulling back and starting to view token spending not as a source of growth but as a cost center that weighs on margins."

That language lands at a moment when US companies are pouring enormous sums into AI tools and vendors, whose leaders have promised that an "age of abundance" — one where people no longer need to work as much — is just around the corner. Apollo's data suggests the payoff side of that bargain has yet to show up anywhere but on tech-sector balance sheets.

The open question

Notably, Slok does not claim the technology itself is worthless. His report poses a forward-looking question: as AI models become commoditized and inference gets cheaper, can mainstream corporate America convert increasingly inexpensive intelligence into faster revenue growth and wider margins? His answer is guarded — "that may be harder than it sounds," he writes.

Why it matters

When a major Wall Street asset manager says on the record that AI's financial payoff outside tech is zero, it carries more weight than the usual wave of skeptic commentary. It is a data-backed contribution to the industry's ongoing ROI debate, arriving while capital spending on AI infrastructure remains enormous and enterprise buyers are deciding whether to expand or trim their commitments.

If Apollo's reading is right, the current cycle looks like a transfer of value toward a handful of AI suppliers rather than a broad productivity lift — a dynamic that could pressure spending, vendor growth expectations and the broader investment case if it persists. If it is wrong, the counterargument will have to show up in exactly the metrics Slok highlights: revenue per worker, margins and productivity outside the tech sector. Either way, the analysis sets a concrete benchmark for judging whether the next phase of AI adoption, built on cheaper and more commoditized models, finally delivers the returns that have so far accrued almost entirely to the sellers of the technology.