AI has finally reached the other 493. Accounting filed it under expenses

SummaryApollo's chief economist says revenue per worker and profit margins are rising for the Magnificent 7 but flat for the rest of the S&P 500, with no sign yet of AI lifting productivity growth. Mainstream companies are starting to treat token spending as a cost center.

October 24, 2026 · MODEL Editors · 2 min read

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The AI boom has a clear winner column and, so far, a very quiet everyone-else column. That is the point of Saturday's Daily Spark from Apollo's chief economist, titled "No Signs of AI Payoff Outside the Tech Sector."

What Apollo said. The note, dated October 24, 2026, says that despite massive investment and hype, AI "has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech." Its five charts make three points:

Revenue per worker is rising for the Magnificent 7 but is flat for the S&P 493, the other companies in the S&P 500 (inflation-adjusted to Q4 2019; Bloomberg and Macrobond data).
Profit margins are rising for the Mag 7 and flat for the S&P 493.
There are still no signs of AI boosting productivity growth, using the San Francisco Fed's utilization-adjusted total factor productivity series.

The last two charts use Ramp AI Index data on business AI adoption and spending. Apollo's read: VC-backed companies keep spending more on tokens, but "mainstream corporate America does not need the latest model and is unwilling to pay for it," and is "starting to view token spending not as a source of growth but as a cost center that weighs on margins." Its bottom line: "the AI story will be decided in the S&P 493, not the Mag 7."

The other side. Economist Brad DeLong, sharing the charts the same day, cautions that measured GDP and non-tech profits may not be where AI's effects show up first. He points to surplus going to users, new companies entering, and big platforms using AI to lock customers in, none of which would lift S&P 493 margins.

Our take. The joke writes itself: the Mag 7 put tokens on the growth budget, and everyone else's accountant put them under expenses. The useful part for anyone selling AI tools to big companies is that the buyer outside tech is asking a plain question, "what did this do to revenue or margins?", and today's charts say the answer isn't visible yet in the aggregate. That can change, and aggregate data lags. It is a market-wide average, not a verdict on any single company.

What we did and didn't do: we read Apollo's note and chart notes and DeLong's post on October 24, 2026. We did not check the underlying Bloomberg, Macrobond or Ramp data ourselves. Not investment advice. Not sponsored; no affiliate links.

MODEL Editors

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Cartoon titled Black Friday came early this year. In a store, a box on a display pedestal reads One (1) AI lab, lightly used, chatbot included, with a smiling cartoon robot on it and the note compute bill sold separately. The pedestal says Display model, do not lick the GPUs. A yellow price tag reads Was $1.4T (crossed out), Now only $1.25T, with a red starburst: $150B off! A cartoon shopper pushing a cart holding a green $30B money bag says: At 11% off? Basically a steal. (minimum basket: $30B). Footer: OpenAI's new round: up to $30B at a $1.25T pre-money valuation, down $150B from $1.4T in talks (Bloomberg, CNBC, Oct 22). Talks ongoing; terms could change. Last round (March): $852B post-money. Watermark: MODEL, readmodelmag.com.

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October 22, 2026 · MODEL Editors

MODEL news card. Headline: Tesla's cash beat came from spending less. Left: a bar chart of Tesla's 2026 capital expenditures so far, $13.01 billion: Q1 $2.49 billion, Q2 $5.79 billion, Q3 $4.73 billion, next to an outlined bar for the Q3 analyst estimate of about $7.5 billion (LSEG via Reuters). Right: Q3 free cash flow reported plus $1.53 billion versus expected minus $4.92 billion, and Q2 2026 minus $1.09 billion. Full-year 2026 capex plan: April, more than $25 billion; now about $20 billion on the call, 'in excess of $20 billion' in the 10-Q. Also: GAAP profit $787 million, down 43%; new $30 billion of credit lines, undrawn; 400 MW of AI training compute by year end. Footer: Sources Tesla Q3 2026 Update and 10-Q, earnings call, Reuters, CNBC, Electrek. TSLA. Not investment advice.

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October 22, 2026 · MODEL Editors

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The top AI tools this week, tested.

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OpenAI is now $150 billion off. Only $1.25 trillion.

Retail bought the chip dip with 3x leverage. The dip had a basement.

Tesla's cash-flow beat came from spending less on AI than planned