Billions in AI spend. Flat margins outside tech.

WHAT HAPPENED

An economist finds no AI payoff outside the tech sector

Apollo's chief economist says revenue per worker and profit margins are rising for the Mag 7 but flat for the S&P 493. No signs of AI boosting productivity growth. Mainstream companies now see token spending as a cost center.

THE NUMBER

42%

of AI initiatives are ultimately abandoned by their corporate parents

S&P Global Market Intelligence, as cited by TechCrunch.

THE REAL PROBLEM IN COMPANIES

What I see in companies: the pilot works, the workflow doesn't change

1. 01The pilot runs in a demo, not inside the daily workflow of the team
2. 02Nobody owns the result, so nobody checks whether the AI is used
3. 03Success is defined as launched, not as measured impact on revenue or margin

I'VE ALREADY SOLVED THIS

AskMoses.AI, the SaaS I built end to end and run as a contractor

1. 0117 organizations in the US signed up. Only 6 actually use it.
2. 0211 of 17 never activated: onboarding required a CRM and a rubric before any value
3. 03Script Intelligence mines winning CRM calls into a weekly script, minimum 3 calls per org

MY TAKE

Launching is not the same as being used.

The source says payoff is missing outside tech. In practice, this suggests the issue is adoption, not model quality. AI pays off when it lands in a real workflow and someone tracks the result. Otherwise it is just a cost line.