THE AI ARMS RACE 🏁

How corporations are leaning into the AI hype to boost stock prices

If you were wondering, the answer is yes: people are *still* talking non-stop about artificial intelligence. It’s everywhere. And it doesn’t look like it’ll be stopping any time soon…

Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 6-months ago, search & conversation volume online about the topic of ‘AI’ has just. kept. climbing.

By the numbers: we’ve seen a +900% increase in ‘AI’ search interest over the past 12-months 👇

And don’t get me wrong here: the AI boom of the past few months has truly been a crazy, beautiful, exciting moment in the grand scheme of human history. We’re experiencing the next industrial revolution; and the way the world works will change immensely over the next decade.

But at the same time, it’s beginning to feel like people are just taking advantage of the AI buzz to drive clicks & attention (often undeservedly)

Nowadays, I swear 90% of my Twitter feed is tech bro’s writing threads about how how to use generative AI tools to make $2000 per week. Like the present-day version of the ‘07-08 real estate agent. 👇

And it’s not just tech bros. It’s also the biggest companies in the world who are taking advantage of the buzz out of self-interest. Let’s take a look at how Big Tech has begun using ‘AI’ buzz to drive stock price: 📈

BIG TECH ‘AI’ HYPE🗣️

Looking into it, Big Tech companies (Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, etc.) have begun mentioning the word ‘AI’ in their recent earnings calls at a record clip…

By the numbers, here’s how often Big Tech is mentioning ‘AI’ in earnings this quarter (compared to last quarter):

• Alphabet (GOOG): 65 times (+5%)

• Meta (META): 57 times (+54%)

• Microsoft (MSFT): 53 times (+83%)

• Amazon (AMZN): 11 times (no previous mentions)

It’s crazy. To put how much the hype has increased into perspective: Alphabet mentioned ‘AI’ 65 times this quarter (Q1 2023); a year ago, there were only 55 earnings mentions of the word ‘AI’ across all companies in the entire S&P 500 🤯

BUT… Why??

Well, it seems like the best answer is: to boost stock prices baby. These companies know that the general public has become highly atuned to the AI hype in recent months, and that any mention of ‘AI’ during earnings calls is a good sign for investors.

So the logic for these companies has become: the more times we mention AI, the more people will think we’re innovating, and the more they’ll buy our stock up. And… it’s kinda working. 🤔

Just look at Meta & Microsoft, who both increased the number of times they mentioned ‘AI’ by more than +50% vs. last quarter — both stocks rose +14% & +8% respectively in the hours after reporting earnings.

And the opposite is true too, for companies that appear late to the game, or not ‘AI'-ing enough, their earnings have declined… take Alphabet (who said AI about the same amount this quarter vs. last quarter) and Amazon (who didn’t even mention AI for the first time until this quarter) — both fell hard after earnings. 🔻

THE HYPE AHEAD 👀

Now, what do we do with this information? Well, good news is there are still quite a few Big Tech companies who haven’t reported earnings yet this quarter… the likes of:

• Nvidia (NVDA): 90(!!) AI mentions last quarter

• AMD (AMD): 17 AI mentions last quarter

• Palantir (PLTR): 17 AI mentions last quarter

• Apple (AAPL): 0(!!) AI mentions last quarter

IF we take a look back at how often each of these companies have mentioned AI over previous quarterly calls & forecast how many times we might expect them to mention ‘AI’ this time around (based on a basic slope/intercept equation), then we might expect something like:

• Nvidia (NVDA): 87 mentions this quarter

• AMD (AMD): 10+ mentions this quarter

• Palantir (PLTR): 16 mentions this quarter

• Apple (AAPL): >0 mentions this quarter

Accounting for these estimates, here’s we might expect these un-reported companies to stack up to the big tech companies who’ve already reported: 👇

Some noteable takeaways:

1.  NVDA: Keep an eye on Nvidia heading into earnings, the AI hype is likely to be ALL THE WAY there. If it is, that could be reason for price to move upwards; and if not, then we might see it dip.

2. AAPL: Apple has yet to say anything about ‘AI’ on a previous earnings call, so if they don’t mention anything, then that could be enough to drive stock price down after the call.

Of course, whether the silly count of ‘AI’ mentions is ~actually~ a decent proxy for the amount of innovation a company is creating is still up for debate… perhaps yes, but it’s more likely that we humans just like taking advantage of shortcuts to try & make a quick buck. I suppose time will tell. 🔮