Census data shows drop in large companies using AI
AI appears to be everywhere, but that doesn’t mean big companies have fully embraced the use of the technology in their day-to-day business.
Though more public companies than ever are talking about AI — a whopping 58% of the S&P 500 Index mentioned the technology in the most recent earnings season, per a report from Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research — how many large firms are actually using it is slightly different.
The latest update from the US Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey of 1.2 million firms suggests that large companies, having experimented with the tools over the last year, might be starting to touch the brakes on their actual AI utilization.
A trend noted by Apollo’s chief economist, Torsten Sløk, shows that as of the second and third week of August, AI adoption in businesses with more than 250 employees had dropped to 9% from a 15% peak in the first two weeks of June. Only 14% of the companies surveyed in the same period in August expected to use AI in their businesses in the next six months, too, down from 19% in June.
There could be some seasonal effects at play, but given how much is riding on the AI boom, that feels like a significant data point that runs contradictory to the continued AI enthusiasm, and wouldn’t yet show up in the earnings of major AI enablers like Nvidia and Broadcom.
Cooling capex growth
The Goldman Sachs report also describes an “inevitable slowdown” in AI-related capital expenditure growth, based on consensus estimates starting in the third and fourth quarters of 2025.
While Big Tech’s eye-popping growth in capital expenditures would be hard to sustain long-term, it is less clear if this forecast cooling is due to an actual decline in demand for AI. The report contains a warning for investors:
“If the slowdown in capex is viewed as a reflection of slowing AI demand, that would weigh on the long-term earnings growth outlooks of these companies.”
