Artificial intelligence has been a focus topic for the market for several quarters. Given the heightened interest, have more S&P 500 companies than normal commented on “AI” during their earnings conference calls for the fourth quarter?
The answer is yes. FactSet Document Search (which allows users to search for key words or phrases across multiple document types) was used to answer this question. Through Document Search, FactSet searched for the term “AI” in the conference call transcripts of all the S&P 500 companies that conducted earnings conference calls from December 15 through March 14.
Of these companies, 241 cited the term “AI” during their earnings call for the fourth quarter. This number is well above the 5-year average of 105 and the 10-year average of 67.
In fact, this is the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “AI” on earnings calls over the past 10 years (using current index constituents going back in time). The previous record over the past 10 years was 212, which occurred in both Q1 2024 and Q2 2024. This quarter also marks the fourth-straight quarter in which more than 200 S&P 500 companies cited “AI” on earnings calls.
At the sector level, the Information Technology sector has the highest number (62) and percentage (93%) of companies citing “AI” on Q4 earnings calls.
It is interesting to note that 9 of the 11 sectors recorded an increase in the number of S&P 500 companies citing “AI” on Q4 earnings compared to Q3 earnings calls, led by the Health Care (+7) and Financials (+6) sectors. On the other hand, the Energy (-3) sector was the only sector that witnessed a quarter-over-quarter decrease in the number of companies citing “AI” on earnings calls.
The FactSet Earnings Insight report will be published one day early next week on March 20.
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