---
title: "Apollo’s Chief Economist Says AI Has Paid Off Only for Tech Companies"
description: "For the S&P 500 minus its seven tech giants, revenue per worker has held near $550,000 and profit margins near 10%, Torsten Slok said."
author: "rews desk"
published: 2026-10-25T16:02:08Z
modified: 2026-10-26T01:10:10Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/apollo-s-chief-economist-says-ai-has-paid-off-only-for-tech--fbf926
language: en
tags: ["ai", "economy", "productivity", "margins", "nvidia", "business"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Apollo’s Chief Economist Says AI Has Paid Off Only for Tech Companies

*For the S&P 500 minus its seven tech giants, revenue per worker has held near $550,000 and profit margins near 10%, Torsten Slok said.*

By rews desk · October 25, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/apollo-s-chief-economist-says-ai-has-paid-off-only-for-tech--fbf926

## In brief

- Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok said AI has delivered ‘zero financial payoff’ to U.S. companies outside tech
- Revenue per employee at seven big tech firms rose from $550,000 in 2022 to nearly $800,000; other S&P 500 firms stayed near $550,000
- Profit margins near 30% for the tech group compared with about 10% for the other 493 companies
- The top 10% of firms account for 99.5% of spending on model serving and inference, according to the note
- Slok said non-tech companies may struggle to turn cheaper AI into higher revenue and margins

Artificial intelligence has made money for the biggest technology companies and almost nobody else, the chief economist of Apollo Global Management said in a note published on Saturday.

Torsten Slok, a partner at the investment firm, split the S&P 500 in two. One side held Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla. The other held the remaining 493 companies, and for them, [Business Insider reported](https://www.businessinsider.com/apollo-ai-zero-financial-payoff-corporate-america-economic-analysis-2026-10), revenue per worker, profit margins and productivity growth have barely moved during the AI boom.

“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,” Mr. Slok said in the note. “The technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech.”

The numbers in his charts are lopsided. Revenue per employee at the seven tech companies has climbed from $550,000 in 2022 to nearly $800,000. Across the rest of the index, it has stayed around $550,000 for about seven years.

Margins tell the same story. Profit margins for the tech group have risen to nearly 30%, [Stocktwits reported](https://stocktwits.com/news-articles/markets/equity/apollo-torsten-slok-warns-ai-zero-payoff-firms-outside-tech-sp-493-mag-7/cZUcu7qRBUn), while the other 493 companies have sat at about 10% since 2022.

Mr. Slok also found no clear pickup in total factor productivity growth, the measure economists use for output that can’t be explained by more labor or capital, despite heavy investment in AI across the economy.

Part of the reason may be how narrow the spending is. According to the note, the top 10% of firms account for 99.5% of spending on model serving and inference, 99% of spending on neoclouds and more than 95% of spending tied to OpenAI and Anthropic. “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,” he said.

He doesn’t think the rest of corporate America is just running late. “AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment,” Mr. Slok said, according to [TechCrunch’s account of the note](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/ai-delivers-zero-financial-payoff-165732723.html). “AI does not understand accountability, trust, culture, unwritten rules, ethical trade-offs or fairness.” TechCrunch said that Apollo once owned the publication.

He also argued that ordinary companies may not need the newest and most expensive models, especially if they can’t turn them into higher revenue or margins. “The AI story will be decided in the S&P 493, not the Mag 7,” he said.

The note runs against the pitch from AI executives, who have promised an “age of abundance” in which people won’t have to work as much. It comes weeks after [Bain and McKinsey raised doubts](https://rews.cc/a/bain-and-mckinsey-say-the-a-i-bill-may-outrun-the-money-to-p-d54851) about whether the money AI earns can keep up with what it costs to build.

“The question looking ahead is whether, even as models become commoditized, mainstream corporate America can turn increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins,” Mr. Slok said. “That may be harder than it sounds.”