FT: America’s top companies keep talking about AI - but can’t explain the upsides

Key topics:US companies hype AI but often lack clear business benefits.Big Tech invests heavily; non-tech firms worry about risks.Cybersecurity, legal issues, and failed pilots top concerns..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up for the BizNews channel here..By Melissa Heikkilä, Chris Cook and Clara Murray in London.The biggest US-listed companies keep talking about artificial intelligence. But other than the “fear of missing out,” few appear to be able to describe how the technology is changing their businesses for the better.That is the conclusion of a Financial Times analysis of hundreds of corporate filings and executive transcripts at S&P 500 companies last year, providing one of the most comprehensive insights yet into how the AI wave is rippling through American industry.Big Tech giants such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta have regularly extolled AI’s benefits, pledging to invest $300bn this year alone to develop the infrastructure around large language models.Large companies far from Silicon Valley, from beverages giant Coca-Cola to sportswear maker Lululemon, are also discussing AI at ever-greater length in their regulatory filings. But they also largely paint a more sober picture of the technology’s usefulness, expressing concern over cyber security, legal risks and the potential for it to fail.Customer service support and data-heavy businesses have found it easiest to explain their use of the technology. Paycom, a payroll services provider, reported in filings AI is an “important differentiator” for attracting and retaining clients..Read more:.The Economist: AI startups soar on hype, not revenue.This index does not allow the size of the so-called Magnificent Seven tech stocks — Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla — to dominate results, and is better for comparing whether a stock has performed better than others in the index.“When it comes to AI adoption, many companies aren’t guided by strategy but by ‘Fomo’,” said Haritha Khandabattu, senior director analyst at consultancy Gartner. “For some leaders, the question isn’t ‘What problem am I solving?’ but ‘What if my competitor solves it first?’”More than Fomo?The FT has used AI tools to identify these mentions of the technology in SEC 10-k filings and earnings transcripts, then to categorise each mention. The results were then checked and analysed to help draw a nuanced picture about what companies were saying to different audiences about the technology.SEC filings require companies to disclose risks to the businesses, and are necessarily more cautious than the sales pitches made by executives on earnings calls. But the increasing array of risks described in filings appears not to be weighing on executives in the public pronouncements.374 of the S&P 500 mentioned AI on earnings calls in the past 12 months — with 87 per cent of the calls logged as wholly positive about the technology with no concerns expressed.Over the past five years, the boom of the Magnificent Seven tech stocks has driven a large portion of the S&P 500’s growth.While non-tech companies are upbeat about AI, their filings suggest less clear upsides. During an earnings call in February, Coca-Cola was excited about the technology — even though the key use was in the production of a TV commercial. The FT sought to categorise the expected positive benefits of the technology. Most of the anticipated benefits, such as increased productivity, were vaguely stated and harder to categorise than the risks.Companies anticipated being able to optimise workflows through automation, and hope to achieve market differentiation through their use of AI. Some hoped to be able to use the technology to improve the personalisation of their products.Filings do reveal that the companies able to give clear AI upsides include those that serve the rising AI-driven data centre boom. Energy companies First Solar and Entergy cited AI as a demand driver.Freeport-McMoran, which has a stockpile of copper, stated that “data centres and artificial intelligence developments” would support the metal’s price. The company also said the technology can help with material characterisation and mineral extraction.Equipment manufacturer Caterpillar reported that its energy business was benefiting from supporting “data centre growth related to cloud computing and generative artificial intelligence”.Possible upsides, clearer risksAs the number of companies discussing AI has grown, fewer businesses are expressing positive views about the technology than they did in 2022.The most commonly cited concern was cyber security, which was mentioned as a risk by more than half of the S&P 500 in 2024.Online dating group Match warned that “the use of AI has been known to result in, and may in the future result in, cyber security incidents that implicate the personal data of end users of AI-enhanced services.”Companies expressed particular concern that other businesses and customers could prove to be weak links. Lululemon said it was concerned about security risks posed by advanced AI technologies, which could lead to sensitive information, such as transaction data, being compromised.Microsoft struck a dramatic tone, saying “[i]neffective or inadequate AI development or deployment practices by Microsoft or others could result in incidents that impair the acceptance of AI solutions, cause harm to individuals, customers, or society, or result in our products and services not working as intended.”“Companies tend to see AI as a risk because they’re not used to having systems or processes which they can’t rely upon 100 per cent,” said Ray Eitel-Porter, an AI governance expert and author.The second largest concern among US companies is the fear that their efforts to introduce the technology will not be successful.Recent research led by Aditya Challapally, who studies how enterprises are applying generative AI at Microsoft and the MIT Media Lab, found 95 per cent of generative AI pilots in the workplace failed.This was because the current generation of AI tools lack features such as long-term memory and customisation, which would make them easier to plug into existing company systems. “When we spoke to executives, they would often say the internal tool was very successful,” said Challapally. “But when we spoke to employees, we found zero usage.” In 174 annual reports, another common concern is the rise of regulatory and legal concerns over implementing AI..Read more:. FT: Nvidia drops 10% as Big Tech risks hit Wall Street.Meta, which has spent billions of dollars to hire a team of researchers dedicated to building “superintelligence”, was among the Big Tech groups to warn it could incur large legal settlements over allegations “that we used various copyrighted books and materials to train our artificial intelligence models”.Other companies with less AI exposure have raised similar worries. PepsiCo said “our use of artificial intelligence may result in increased claims of infringement or other claims, including those based on unauthorised use of third-party technology or content”.The FT’s analysis shows that companies are a lot clearer about the potential problems with AI than the upsides. “[T]here can be no assurance that the usage of AI will enhance our products or services or be beneficial to our business, including our efficiency or profitability,” Meta wrote in its 10k form last year. “We may not be successful in our artificial intelligence initiatives, which could adversely affect our business, reputation, or financial results.”.© 2025 The Financial Times Ltd.

FT: America’s top companies keep talking about AI - but can’t explain the upsides

Key topics:

Related Stories