[The Huge Gap Behind the AI Boom: Tech Giants' Profit Margins Soar, While the Remaining 493 US Companies Stagnate] Beating AI News reports that Torsten Sløk, chief economist at US asset management giant Apollo, released five charts arguing that AI has so far failed to deliver significant financial returns to large US companies outside of the tech giants. While the tech giants' revenue per employee and profit margins continue to climb, these two metrics have remained largely stagnant for the remaining 493 companies in the S&P 500. US total factor productivity data also shows no clear signs of AI-driven growth. Apollo, citing data from enterprise payment platform Ramp, found that the top 10% of its clients contributed 99.5% of model hosting and inference fees. Of the top 1% of companies spending on AI, approximately 80% have venture capital backing, compared to only 13% of companies in the median spending category. A large portion of AI computing power consumption is concentrated in a few companies, many of which rely on venture capital. Corporate financial reports also struggle to demonstrate the true value created by AI. Apollo previously reported that in the second quarter of 2026, 69% of S&P 500 companies disclosed they were actually using AI, but only 2% published metrics for continuously tracking its effectiveness. Another NBER study, updated in October of this year, surveyed nearly 9,000 business executives in seven countries. Respondents estimated that AI had only increased the annual growth rate of corporate labor productivity by about 0.2 percentage points over the past three years. AI can help employees write code, create reports, and process emails faster, but doing more doesn't necessarily mean generating more revenue. [Original Link]