On hype, zero return: Corporate America sees little return beyond big technology.

On hype, zero return: Corporate America sees little return beyond big technology.

While the seven giant tech stocks are seeing fatter profit margins, for most mainstream companies AI has delivered "zero return," Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok said in a media statement. He also stressed that “there are no signs yet of AI boosting productivity growth. ". Advanced AI agents and heavy use of tokens are still limited to a small part of the economy, he argued, which is why the broader economic payoff is stalling. Concerns are also growing about the debt-driven expansion of AI infrastructure. More than $3.5 trillion in spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure could face a decline in value by 2030 if revenues don't materialize, according to a Gartner consultancy estimate.

Data center operators will by then need about $8.5 trillion in cumulative revenue just to cover costs and earn a 12% return on invested capital.

substack | talk.