Apollo exec says AI has 'zero financial payoff' beyond tech sector

An article from Though the artificial intelligence boom has helped lift the stocks of a few tech giants, it’s done little for other S&P 500 firms, argues Apollo Chief Economist Torsten Slok. Published Oct. 27, 2026 cfo.com A view of Times Square featuring massive digital billboards for Claude AI and Microsoft on June 20, 2026. A partner with Apollo Global Management argued in an October blog post that AI has “delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech." Brian Logan via Getty Images Is anyone outside the tech sector actually benefiting from the artificial intelligence boom? A new report by a partner from Apollo Global Management raises questions about the nascent technology’s impacts on the wider economy. In a blog published Oct. 24, Torsten Slok, partner and chief economist at Apollo, argued that AI has “delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech.” Only the so-called “Magnificent Seven,” a group of high-profile tech stocks including Nvidia, Amazon and Meta, are seeing rising revenue per worker and profit margins, Slok wrote, noting that both metrics are trending flat for the remainder of the S&P 500 companies. “With no impact on the bottom line, 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,” Slok wrote. “As long as agentic AI and token spending are confined to a small part of the economy, the macroeconomic effects of AI will be very limited.” Slok’s report came amid continuing fears of a potential economic “bubble” in the AI space alongside concerns about the circular nature of deals among the Magnificent Seven companies. One economist at a recent CFO gathering in Colorado even suggested that the U.S. economy would essentially be in an economic recession if it were not for the massive sums of money being invested in the AI industry. The Apollo blog also came just days before frontier AI company Anthropic issued its S-1 document to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Though that filing showed a rapid increase in revenue for the young company, it also revealed massive losses surpassing $80 billion for the first half of 2026. Slok’s essay was surprising to see from Apollo, a global investment firm that itself has funded several AI-related initiatives. Just one day after Slok’s essay came out, for instance, Elon Musk announced that his company SpaceX has signed a multibillion-dollar chip financing commitment with Apollo. Going forward, Slok wrote, the lingering question is whether “mainstream corporate America can turn increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins.” “AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment. Judgment depends on context, and the answer varies with which human or which model you ask,” Slok wrote. “Perhaps most importantly, 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.” What Slok’s essay ultimately means for Apollo’s AI investment strategy isn’t yet clear. The company didn’t immediately respond to questions sent via email on Monday.