AI is driving huge productivity gains for large companies while small companies get left behind

Artificial quality is widening the productivity spread betwixt ample and tiny companies, lifting up bigger firms that are capable to efficaciously standard the exertion and chopped costs necktie to quality workers.

Large-cap companies are seeing dependable AI-related productivity gains since the merchandise of OpenAI's ChatGPT exemplary successful 2022 successful presumption of their existent gross per worker, according to Wells Fargo analysis. Small-cap names are witnessing a diminution implicit the aforesaid period, meanwhile, the steadfast found.

"While productivity for the S&P 500 has soared 5.5% since ChatGPT, it's down 12.3% for the Russell 2000," Wells Fargo equity strategist Ohsung Kwon wrote successful caller enactment to clients. "We spot different examples of diverging trends successful consumer, industrial, and fiscal markets."

Breakthrough advancements successful AI this twelvemonth person led large corporations similar Amazon to notably spell all-in connected the technology, uncovering ways to destruct quality roles that tin beryllium replaced by AI machines.

The show of the S&P 500 versus the Russell 2000 small-cap scale bespeak this divergence successful productivity gains. The wide marketplace scale is up 74% since ChatGPT's 2022 launch, portion the Russell is lone up 39%.

The biggest U.S. companies person been internally deploying AI tools implicit the past fewer years to amended their productivity, proviso chains and, successful immoderate cases, chopped headcount. A World Economic Forum survey published astatine the commencement of 2025 recovered that astir 40% of companies astir the satellite expect to trim their workforces implicit the adjacent 5 years successful roles wherever AI tin automate tasks.

Layoffs this twelvemonth person been connected the emergence with respective big-name companies, including Target, Meta, Starbucks, Oracle, Microsoft and UPS, having announced significant, and sometimes historic, cuts to their full headcount. Companies person mostly cited efforts to streamline operations and maturation strategy arsenic reasons for cuts, but many are nodding to AI arsenic portion of the crushed that quality idiosyncratic roles tin beryllium axed present oregon successful the future.

For one, Amazon has been a person successful robot deployment crossed its facilities, which the e-commerce elephantine has said is improving costs and transportation times. The New York Times reported successful October that Amazon executives judge the institution is connected way to regenerate much than fractional a cardinal jobs with robots, which they judge will save astir 30 cents connected each point Amazon selects, packs and delivers to customers. Morgan Stanley believes Amazon's robotics efforts can prevention the institution betwixt $2 cardinal and $4 billion by 2027.

Klarna, which has been among the astir transparent successful however AI is affecting its headcount, has shrunk its workforce by astir 40%, successful portion owed to its AI investments. CrowdStrike successful May announced cuts to 5% of the company's planetary workforce, citing AI efficiencies and saying that the exertion "flattens our hiring curve." IBM's CEO has forecasted 30% of non-customer-facing roles to be chopped by 2028 and told the Wall Street Journal earlier this twelvemonth that AI chatbots person replaced 200 HR employees, freeing up investments to prosecute much radical successful income and programming.

Palo Alto Networks, Walmart and McDonald's are different companies that person notably been leveraging AI successful ways that analysts expect volition amended margins, we previously reported.

A September Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Insights survey of 5,000 tiny businesses successful US, Canada, the UK, and Australia revealed that 68% of businesses person integrated AI into their regular operations, with astir two-thirds reporting an summation in productivity.

"The numbers don't lie," Wells Fargo's Kwon said successful his report.