Morgan Stanley (MS) said in a research report Monday that the first-half earnings season saw an inflection in companies discussing artificial intelligence (AI), with around 15% of firms quantifying a revenue or cost-benefit from using machine learning across a broad spectrum of applications. Of the 316 qualifying companies that mentioned AI, 106 explicitly cited fundamental business improvement from using AI or machine learning.
29 quantified the revenue opportunity, 36 quantified a cost or productivity gain, 12 discussed customer service and in-housing as the lowest-hanging fruit, 8 saw efficiency and in-housing of creative advertising, 82 other comments referred qualitatively to revenue or cost gains, analysts led by Edward Stanley wrote. The lion’s share of this activity occurred in the U.S.
The bank’s analysis covered global companies with a market cap greater than $10 billion, which reported results since July 1. The three most significant trends among non-tech company earnings were biopharma gains from AI applications from strain selection to regulatory filings; large-cap banks discussing costs savings and onboarding from autonomous and in-house customer service; and legal use cases from summaries to drafting appearing across the spectrum of reporting companies.
Rival Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs (GS) said AI adoption will likely have a meaningful impact on the U.S. economy sometime between 2025 and 2030.