Number of S&P 500 companies mentioning AI hits record
Companies of all kinds are finding ways to talk about AI on earnings calls.
AI AI AI — it’s all big companies can talk about these days. About 40% of S&P 500 discussed AI on their earnings calls this past quarter — up from 1% five years ago, according to data from FactSet.
That’s no surprise as on Wall Street right now, AI = money. Companies “pursuing or enabling” AI technology have outperformed the equal weight S&P 500 by nearly 20 percentage points this year, according to an analysis by Goldman Sachs. What’s doing even better? Energy companies, which are riding high off of AI’s immense energy needs.
Mentions were most common among information tech, communication services, and energy companies, according to Goldman. But it’s certainly not isolated to those industries. Companies of all kinds are getting into the AI mix, including consumer discretionary, financial, industrial, and real estate.
“Companies primarily cite AI as an efficiency gain rather than a revenue driver,” according to a note from Morgan Stanley. "Early beneficiaries from an efficiency standpoint are primarily in Software and Internet though the future opportunity spans a wide range of industries.” So even if AI is not a direct part of their business, companies want to use it internally to be more productive.
That means pretty much every other major company is leaning into AI. Facebook belabored how the metaverse is actually AI. Chip maker Nvidia discussed the many ways AI’s helping them mint money. Walmart mentioned how AI is improving product searches and letting people exit Sam’s Club without waiting in line to get their receipts checked. Yum! Brands apparently has “more than 40 AI initiatives in progress across the company,” including voice AI at Taco Bell drive-thrus.
