Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok published a Daily Spark note on October 24, 2026 titled "No Signs of AI Payoff Outside the Tech Sector." His core claim is blunt: despite massive investment and hype, AI has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech.
Key Facts
| Details | |
|---|---|
| Author | Torsten Slok, Partner and Chief Economist, Apollo Global Management |
| Note | Daily Spark, October 24, 2026 |
| Title | No Signs of AI Payoff Outside the Tech Sector |
| S&P 493 | S&P 500 minus Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla (Mag 7) |
| Revenue per worker | Rising for Mag 7; flat for S&P 493 |
| Profit margins | Rising for Mag 7; flat for S&P 493 |
| Productivity | Still no signs of AI boosting TFP growth (third chart in the note) |
| Bottom line (Slok) | The AI story will be decided in the S&P 493, not the Mag 7 |
Background
Slok defines the S&P 493 as the S&P 500 without the Mag 7. Charts in the note show Mag 7 revenue per worker and margins rising while the rest of the index stays flat. A third chart, based on utilization-adjusted total factor productivity from the San Francisco Fed, shows no clear AI-driven productivity lift.
He writes that mainstream corporate America is starting to treat token spending as a cost center that weighs on margins, not a growth engine. VC-backed firms are spending more on tokens; mainstream buyers do not need the latest model and are unwilling to pay for it. If agentic AI and token spend stay confined to a small slice of the economy, he says, the macro effects will stay limited.
Looking ahead, Slok asks whether cheaper, commoditized models will translate into higher revenue and margins outside tech. He is skeptical. "AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment," he writes. AI does not understand accountability, trust, culture, unwritten rules, ethical trade-offs, or fairness, factors he ties to reputational risk and financial results.
TechCrunch's Anthony Ha covered the same note on October 25, 2026 (about 9:57 AM PDT), quoting the "zero financial payoff" line and Slok's judgment framing. Ha also noted that recent studies have found AI has yet to deliver significant productivity gains, without naming a specific study in that piece.
Fortune (Jason Ma, October 24, 2026) and related Yahoo Finance syndication framed Saturday's note as part of a same-week series of Slok warnings. Those earlier notes, as summarized by Fortune/Yahoo rather than as content unique to the Saturday "zero payoff" piece, flagged a slowdown in token-spending growth, "circularity" concerns in AI financing and spend, and Slok's point that about 80% of the top 1% of AI spenders are VC-backed. Fortune also tied the week's notes to market pressure on AI-related names, citing CoreWeave down more than 30% in the month and elevated credit-default-swap levels for some AI-linked credits. Treat those market figures as Fortune's reporting, not as claims inside Slok's Saturday note.
Reactions and Impact
Coverage from TechCrunch and Fortune/Yahoo amplified the S&P 493 framing for investors watching whether AI returns show up beyond hyperscalers. Slok's own bottom line is that so far there is no evidence revenue growth or margins are improving outside the tech sector.
What We Don't Know Yet
- Whether S&P 493 revenue per worker or margins will eventually rise as models get cheaper.
- How long mainstream firms will keep token budgets if margins stay flat.
- Which specific productivity studies TechCrunch had in mind beyond Slok's TFP chart.
- Whether concentration of token spend in VC-backed firms will ease as enterprise adoption deepens.