
Metaverse
Our early-adopters index examines how corporate America is deploying AI – Crypto News
View Full Image
The main reason for the surge is the promise of artificial intelligence (AI). Since the launch in November of ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot, investors have grown ever more excited about a new wave of the technology that can create human-like content, from poems and chunks of code to video footage. This “generative AI” relies on large-language models which are “trained” on large chunks of the internet. Many think the technology could reshape entire industries and have as much impact on business and society as smartphones or cloud computing. Firms that can make the best use of technology, the thinking goes, will be able to expand profit margins and gain market share.
Corporate bosses are at pains to demonstrate how they are adopting AI. On April 4th Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s boss, said his bank had 600 machine-learning engineers and had put AI to work on more than 300 different internal applications. David Ricks, the boss of Eli Lilly, has said that the pharmaceutical giant has more than 100 projects on the go using AI. Howard Schultz, who recently stood down as boss of Starbucks, had said he planned to invest $1bn to use AI to figure out how to make the perfect vegan breakfast sandwich to accompany the coffee the firm sells.
Company case studies reveal only part of the picture. To get a broader sense of which companies and industries are adopting AI The Economist examined data on all the firms in the S&P 500. We looked at five measures: the share of issued patents that mention AI; venture-capital (VC) activity targeting AI firms; acquisitions of AI firms; job listings citing AI; and mentions of the technology on earnings calls. Because other types of AI could bring benefits to business, our analysis captures activity for all AI, not just the generative wave. The results show that even beyond tech firms the interest in AI is widespread and growing fast. Moreover, clear leaders and laggards are already emerging.
Start with the growing interest. AI expertise already seems to be spreading widely. About two-thirds of the firms in our universe have placed a job ad mentioning AI skills in the past three years says PredictLeads, a research firm. Of those that did, today 5.3% of their listed vacancies mention AI, up from a three-year average of 2.5%. In some industries the rise is more dramatic (see chart 2). In retail firms that share has jumped from 3% to 11%, while among chipmakers that proportion grew from 9% to 19%.

View Full Image
The number of AI-related patents trended up between 2020 and 2022, based on data provided by Amit Seru of Stanford University. PitchBook, another research firm, concludes that in 2023 some 25% of venture deals by S&P 500 firms involved AI startups, up from 19% in 2021. GlobalData, also a research firm, finds that about half the firms scrutinized have talked about AI in their earnings calls since 2021 and that in the first quarter of this year the number of times AI was mentioned in the earnings calls of America Inc more than doubled compared with the previous quarter. Roughly half have been granted a patent relating to the technology between 2020 and 2022.
The use of generative AI may eventually become even more common that other types of AI. That is because it is good at lots of tasks essential to running a firm. A report by McKinsey, a consultancy, argues that three-quarters of the expected value created by generative AI will come in four business functions—research and development, software engineering, marketing and customer service. To some extent, all these operations are at the core of most large businesses. Furthermore, any large company with internal databases used to guide employees could find a use for an AI-powered chatbot. Morgan Stanley, a bank, is building an AI assistant that will help its wealth managers find and summarize answers from a huge internal database. SLB, an oil-services company, has built a similar assistant to help service engineers.
While the adoption of AI is happening among many firms some are more enthusiastic than others. Ranking all the companies using each metric and then taking an average produces a simple scoring system. Those at the top seem to be winning over investors. Since the beginning of the year, the median share price of the top 100 has risen by 11% while for the lowest-scoring quintile it has not moved at all.
The top spots are unsurprisingly dominated by Silicon Valley. On a broad definition, the S&P 500 contains 82 tech firms. Almost 50 of them make the top 100. Nvidia is the highest-scoring firm. According to data from PredictLeads, over the past three years a third of its job listings have mentioned AI. In the past year the firm has mentioned AI in its earnings calls almost 200 times, more than any other company. Other high-ranking tech firms include the cloud-computing giants—Amazon (34th), Microsoft (12th) and Alphabet (3rd). They sell access to a range of AI tools, from services that help train sophisticated models to software that lets you use AI without having to write reams of code.
Beyond tech, two types of firms seem to be adopting AI the fastest. One is data-intensive industries, such as insurers, financial-services firms and health-care providers. They account for about a quarter of our top 100. These firms tend to have lots of structured datasets, such as loan books or patient files, which makes it easier to use AI, notes Ali Ghodsi of Databricks, a database firm. Around a tenth of JPMorgan Chase’s current job listings mention AI. The firm recently filed a patent for “IndexGPT”, an AI-infused chatbot that gives investment advice. Health-care firms like Gilead Sciences and Moderna use AI to discover new drugs. Others, such as Abbott Laboratories and Align Technology, build AI- powered medical devices. America’s Food and Drug Administration approved 97 such machines last year, up from 26 in 2017.
A second group is industries that are already being disrupted by technology, including carmakers, telecoms, media and retail. Thirteen firms from these industries make the high-scoring 100, including Ford, GM and Tesla. The rise of electric vehicles and the prospect of self-driving cars has encouraged vehicle manufacturers to invest in the technology. In March Ford established Latitude AI, a self-driving car subsidiary that might one day rival GM’s Cruise. In April Elon Musk told analysts that Tesla was buying up specialized AI chips and was “very focused” on improving their AI capabilities in an effort to improve its autonomous-driving efforts.
Retail firms are using AI to bolster their core business. Nike, a sportswear giant, filed an application for a patent in 2021 for a system that can generate three-dimensional computer models of trainers. Christian Kleinerman, of Snowflake, a database provider, notes that retail firms are also taking advantage of the growth of e-commerce by collecting more data on customers. That allows more accurate targeting of marketing campaigns. Some may take personalization a step further. In 2021 Procter & Gamble, a consumer-goods giant, applied for a patent for an AI-based system which analyzes users’ skin and hair conditions based on photos, and recommends products to treat them.
One source of variation in AI use across industries may be a result of the type of work undertaken. A working paper led by Andrea Eisfeldt of the University of California looked at how exposed firms are to AI. The researchers assessed which tasks took place in a firm and how well ChatGPT could perform them. The most exposed were tech firms, largely because AI chatbots are good at coding. Those industries least exposed tended to rely on manual labor, such as agriculture and construction.
There are also clear leaders and laggards within industries too. Some 70 firms in the S&P 500 show no sign on any of our metrics of focusing on AI. That includes firms in AI-heavy industries, such as insurers and health-care firms. One distinguishing factor within industries may be investment. For the top 100 firms of our ranking, the median R&D expenditure as a share of revenue was 11%. For those in the lowest 100 it was zero.
Vlad Lukic, of BCG, a consultancy, notes that there is even a lot of variation within companies. He recalls visiting two divisions of the same medium-sized multinational. One had no experience working with AI. The other was advanced; it had been using a pilot version of OpenAI’s technology for two years.
Many non-tech companies’ AI use is growing more sophisticated. Mr Seru’s data reveal that about 80 non-tech firms have had AI-related patents issued which were cited by another patent, suggesting that they have some technological value. Some 45 non-tech companies in the S&P 500 have recently placed ads which mention model training, including Boeing, United Health and State Street. That suggests they may be building their own models rather than using off-the-shelf technology from the likes of OpenAI. The advantage of this approach is that it can produce more-accurate AI, giving a greater edge over rivals.
However, a shift to in-house training hints at one of the risks: security. In May Samsung discovered that staff had uploaded sensitive code to ChatGPT. The concern is that this information may be stored on external servers of the firms which run the models, such as Microsoft and Alphabet. Now Samsung is reportedly training its own models. It also joined the growing list of firms that banned or limited the use of ChatGPT, such as Apple and JPMorgan Chase.
Other risks abound. Model makers, including OpenAI, are being sued for violating copyright laws over their use of internet data to train their models. Some large corporations think that they could be left liable if they use OpenAI’s technology. Furthermore, models are prone to make up information. In one incident a New York lawyer used ChatGPT to write a motion. The chatbot included fictional case-law and the lawyer was fined by the court.
But all this must be weighed against the potential benefits, which could be vast. Waves of technology frequently turn industries on their heads. As generative AI diffuses into the economy, it is not hard to imagine it doing the same thing. Mr Lukic says that the biggest risk for companies may be “falling behind”. Judged by the scramble in America Inc for all things AI, many bosses and investors would agree.
To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology, sign up to the bottom lineour weekly subscriber-only newsletter.
© 2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under license. The original content can be found on www.economist.com
Catch all the business news, market news, breaking news Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
Updated: 26 Jun 2023, 02:20 PM IST
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Change In US Crypto Laws May Affect Charges In Do Kwon’s Criminal Case – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Gold retreats while Fed Powell and President Trump clash over interest rates – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Branded smartwatches under ₹5000 for style and functionality: Top 10 picks for everyday wear – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Best Crypto to Buy as Polymarket Nears $1B Valuation – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Tariffs may be adding a quarter of a percentage point to inflation right now – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Best laptops under ₹40,000 (June 2025) with latest processors, SSD storage, and Windows 11 features, Top 10 picks – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Top 10 air coolers for monsoon: Handpicked products for effective cooling from trusted brands – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
SHIB Price Prediction for June 26 – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
EUR/JPY steadies near 169.00 as traders await the next catalyst – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency6 days ago
Friday charts: Retail is one-upping Wall Street – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
Bitcoin rallies to $106K on Mideast ceasefire news; Circle shares continue explosive climb – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
What next for XRP after breaking above the $2.15 resistance? – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
US judge rules Anthropic’s use of books for AI training is fair use: All you need to know – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Bitcoin Price Could Rally To $110,000 ATH As These Macroeconomic Factors Align – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Winnebago Industries (WGO) tops Q3 earnings estimates – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Breakout To $2,800 Or Crash To $2,000? – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Bank of America, Netflix and Apple Customers Targeted by Widescale Google Search Scams: Report – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
OpenAI and Jony Ive’s AI hardware ambitions hit roadblock over trademark dispute: Report – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Turkey plans stricter crypto rules to fight money laundering – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
US Housing Chief Orders Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to Prepare for Crypto Assessment in Mortgages – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Too many messages to read? WhatsApp launches AI-enabled summary feature for unread chats. Here’s how it works – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
AI-Focused Layer-1 Blockchain Altcoin SAHARA Flames Out Following New Binance Listing – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency7 days ago
Vodafone Share Price Tests 78p Ahead of July Earnings, Is a Breakout Imminent? – Crypto News
-
others7 days ago
USD/INR drops to two-week low as Rupee gains on weak US Dollar – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency6 days ago
TRON price forecast as USDT supply surpasses $80 billion – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Taker Buy Volume Spikes Sharply – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
Solana-based StarFun lets projects raise capital with crypto – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Synaptogenix Acquires Bittensor’s TAO for AI Crypto Treasury – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Right now, we’re in watch and wait mode – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Barclays to Ban Crypto Purchases via Credit Card – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Sei Soars 70% as Wallet Growth and On-Chain Activity Hit New Highs – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
Microsoft launches Mu AI model for smart local tasks on Windows PCs – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Russia’s Central Bank Pushes CBDC Launch to 2026 – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
Wormhole price jumps 12% amid Ripple’s XRPL integration – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
It isn’t a dream. Tech stocks are breaking out—and the gains can keep coming. – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
Permissionless IV, Day 3 takeaways – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Aptos DEX Activity Hits Record, Nears $200 Million in Daily Volume – Crypto News
-
De-fi7 days ago
U.S Judge Denies Ripple-SEC Request to Lift Injunction and Reduce $125 Million Fine – Crypto News
-
Blockchain7 days ago
Deaton Says Ripple IPO Could Trigger $100B Valuation, How High Will The XRP Price Be? – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
German IFO Business Climate Index rises further to 88.4 in June vs. 88.3 expected – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Bitcoin Accounts For One-Third of Investor Crypto Portfolios in 2025 – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Jerome Powell testifies Fed is well-positioned to wait to learn more about economy – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Aptos and Jump Crypto Launch Shelby, a Web3 Cloud Storage Platform – Crypto News
-
De-fi1 week ago
Dragonfly-Backed Codex Launches Blockchain for Stablecoins with Native USDC Support – Crypto News
-
Technology1 week ago
US judge rules Anthropic’s use of books for AI training is fair use: All you need to know – Crypto News
-
Cryptocurrency1 week ago
Michael Saylor Proposes Strategy’s Credit Model for US Bitcoin-Backed Mortgage Plan – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
United States 2-Year Note Auction fell from previous 3.955% to 3.786% – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Many Senators Absent From ‘Bipartisan’ Crypto Market Structure Hearing – Crypto News
-
others1 week ago
Crypto Analyst Benjamin Cowen Predicts Multi-Month Correction for Bitcoin, Says Time To Rip Band-Aid Off for Altcoins – Crypto News
-
Blockchain1 week ago
Bunker Buster: Ethereum Titans Stake $100 Million Amid US-Iran Hostilities – Crypto News