Artificial intelligence has been a focus topic for the market in recent months. Given the heightened interest, have more S&P 500 companies than normal commented on “AI” during their earnings conference calls for the first 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 March 15 through May 25.
Of these companies, 110 cited the term “AI” during their earnings call for the first quarter. This number is well above the 5-year average of 57 and the 10-year average of 34.
In fact, this is the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “AI” on earnings calls going back to at least 2010 (using current index constituents going back in time). The previous record was 78, which occurred in the prior quarter (Q4 2022).
At the sector level, the Information Technology (38), Industrials (17), and Communication Services (15) sectors have the highest number of S&P 500 companies citing “AI” on Q1 earnings calls, while the Communication Services (75%) and Information Technology (66%) sectors have the highest percentages of companies citing “AI” on Q1 earnings calls.
It is also interesting to note that of the S&P 500 companies that have cited “AI” on Q1 earnings calls, 46 have cited the term “generative AI” on these calls.
The FactSet Earnings Insight report will be published one day early next week on June 1.
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