Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok just published a gloomy report on AI.

imo, other signals I’m watching don’t really support these.

> Slok says mainstream firms don’t need the latest model and won’t pay for it, and with no bottom-line gain they now treat token spending as a cost center that weighs on margins.

> He says, total factor productivity growth sits near 0%, and Slok expects AI’s macro effect to stay very limited while agentic AI and token spending remain confined to a small slice of firms.

> Argues cheaper, commoditized models may not close the gap, because per him, business value depends on judgment, accountability, trust and unwritten rules that AI doesn’t understand.