Financeupdated 43m ago3 min read
Apollo Economist Torsten Slok Says AI Delivers Zero Financial Payoff Outside Tech Sector
“For NVDA holders, the immediate question is whether the market will lower the price it pays for Nvidia's expected earnings before those earnings themselves turn down.”
“AI hasn’t benefited the bottom line of any big corporations outside the tech industry, according to a note recently published by the chief economist at Apollo Global Management”
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AI delivers zero financial payoff outside the technology sector. Magnificent Seven show rising revenue per worker and margins.
Zero payoff claim
Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, argued in a Daily Spark note published on October 24, 2026 that artificial intelligence has delivered "zero financial payoff" to corporate America outside of tech. Slok’s charts split the S&P 500 into the seven-company "Mag 7" group and the remaining 493 constituents called the "S&P 493," and he said "Revenue per worker is rising for the Mag 7 but is flat for the S&P 493." Slok also said "Profit margins are rising for the Mag 7 but are flat for the S&P 493," and he framed the lack of broad gains as a problem for the economics of AI spending.
Apollo’s note added that "There are still no signs of AI boosting productivity growth," while its productivity chart tracked output per hour and total factor productivity from January 1985. The Daily Spark note concluded that the AI story would be decided in the S&P 493, not the Mag 7, and that there was "no evidence that revenue growth or margins are improving outside the tech sector."
Skepticism meets capex
TechCrunch said Slok focused on the S&P 493, finding that profit margins and revenue per worker appear to be flat and that there was no evidence that AI was improving productivity. Slok argued that it would be tough for corporate America to "turn increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins," and he wrote that "AI does not understand accountability, trust, culture, unwritten rules, ethical trade-offs or fairness." Startup Fortune reported that Slok’s note landed as a separate AI-financing scare unfolded, after Chamath Palihapitiya flagged that the yield on $1.25 billion of CoreWeave bonds due in 2032 briefly touched 15%.
Startup Fortune said CoreWeave shares fell more than 15% on October 14, and it said yields on its unsecured bonds subsequently remained near 15% as Oracle and other AI infrastructure stocks sold off. Apollo’s Daily Spark note said mainstream corporate America was pulling back and starting to view token spending not as a source of growth but as a cost center that weighs on margins.
Market implications and Nvidia
TECHi said Apollo’s chief economist argued in an October 24 research note that broad US companies still show little measurable financial payoff from artificial intelligence, and it framed the warning as about the economics of AI buyers. TECHi reported that from September 24 to the October 23 close, its NVDA forecast data showed the same-period FY2027 EPS estimate edging from $9.3071 to $9.3124 while the share price fell from $224.58 to $210.96. TECHi calculated that the implied price-to-estimated-earnings ratio slipped from about 24.13 to 22.65, and it said the compression, rather than a documented collapse in Nvidia profit expectations, was the starting point for its forecast.
Nvidia’s August 26 results provided a counterweight, because Nvidia reported revenue for the quarter ended July 26 of $96.2 billion, up 106% from a year earlier, with Data Center revenue at $89.0 billion, up 117%. Nvidia guided for fiscal third-quarter revenue of $108.0 billion, plus or minus 2%, and a 74.0% gross margin, plus or minus 0.5 percentage point, while TECHi noted that Apollo’s S&P 493 comparison did not establish that enterprises buying AI services are themselves earning attractive returns.