AI’s Boost to the US Economy Is Nearing Its Peak

Author: Nick Lichtenberg (Fortune, October 26, 2026) Full headline: AI’s boost to the U.S. economy is nearing its peak, Goldman says, as Apollo finds ‘zero financial payoff’ outside Big Tech URL: https://fortune.com/2026/10/26/ai-zero-financial-payoff-outside-big-tech-apollo-slok-goldman-peak/ One-line: Two chief economists agree AI’s macro lift is concentrated and cresting: Goldman Sachs’s Jan Hatzius sees the growth impulse peaking in late 2026 or early 2027, and Apollo’s Torsten Slok finds no payoff yet outside the Magnificent 7. They split on whether it pays off later.

Key claims

• Slok’s headline. “Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech” (note dated Saturday, October 24).
• Hatzius’s peak. The AI growth impulse peaks in late 2026 or early 2027, “even before concerns around the sustainability of the AI investment boom intensified in recent weeks.” AI investment is still rising but its increase as a share of GDP slows, and the boost from restored 100% bonus depreciation (the One Big Beautiful Bill) fades.
• Other headwinds. Fuel and gas prices near March–April highs on Middle East fears; long-term rates up ~100 bps across developed-market curves since early 2026, partly from deficits and “AI-linked borrowing,” worth a cumulative 0.6% of GDP if it lasts.
• The wealth effect. Goldman estimates AI-driven stock gains added 0.4 points to US consumer spending growth over the past year (0.25% of GDP), and expects it to decline, sharply if AI stocks keep falling.
• The S&P 493. Real revenue per worker and margins are rising for the Magnificent 7 and flat for everyone else; the SF Fed’s utilization-adjusted TFP shows no AI lift.
• Tokens as a cost center. Mainstream companies are “starting to view token spending not as a source of growth but as a cost center that weighs on margins,” while venture-backed companies spend more and more (citing the Ramp AI Index and Ara Kharazian at Ramp). Mainstream corporate America “does not need the latest model and is unwilling to pay for it.”
• The split. Goldman’s base case: AI “will ultimately pay off in terms of higher productivity and economywide profits,” though one channel is labor disruption with “negative near-term macroeconomic effects.” Goldman now sees a statistically significant negative correlation between AI use and employment growth across US nonmanufacturing industries. Slok: turning “increasingly cheap intelligence” into margins “may be harder than it sounds.”

Notable quotes

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. (Slok)

AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment. (Slok)

How it connects

• Torsten Slok, Ara Kharazian: the sources behind the “S&P 493” and token-spend data.
• AI Infrastructure, Compute: the capex side of the same boom, which Sridhar’s same-day thread on compute commitments analyzes.
• How AI Is Transforming Economic Research and Analysis: the same week’s case that AI is already doing economists’ work.
• The Quick Shall Inherit the Earth: Jeff Huber’s argument for why firms that reorganize, rather than just buy tokens, will capture the payoff.