Meta’s new data center in Eagle Mountain, Utah, Nov. 19, 2024. The bulk of Meta’s new AI spending will be on infrastructure like data centers. (Image: New York Times)

As AI spending continues to swell, tech CEOs and investors are banking on artificial intelligence to spur a productivity boom and deliver unimaginable corporate profits. But that is proving to be a harder sell, at least for those outside the tech industry.

Torsten Slock, chief economist at private equity firm Apollo Global Management, has said that AI has not delivered any financial payoff to US companies other than tech firms.

Slock outlined his views in a recently published note, where he subtracts the ‘Magnificent Seven’ – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla – from the S&P 500.…