What Are Companies Saying About AI Adoption Benefits & AI‘s Impact on Labor?: Thematic Alpha | North America

Research evidence excerpt

What Are Companies Saying About AI Adoption Benefits & AI‘s Impact on Labor?: Thematic Alpha | North America

Foundation

July 8, 2026 04:01 AM GMT

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLCMThematic Alpha | North America Michelle M. Weaver, CFA

Equity Strategist

What Are Companies Saying Michelle.M.Weaver@morganstanley.comStephen C Byrd +1 212 296-5254

Equity Analyst

Stephen.Byrd@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-3865

About AI Adoption Benefits & Anna Feldman

Anna.Feldman@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-3784

AI's Impact on Labor? Qingyi Huang

Qingyi.Huang@morganstanley.com +1 212 296-4837

AI adoption benefits remain robust despite investor concerns Jasper Lin

about AI cost discipline. Quantifiable impacts continue to rise, EquityJasper.Lin@morganstanley.comStrategist +1 212 761-0837

especially among MS AI Adopters, with benefits concentrated in Wen Zhang, CFA

financial impact and productivity. AI/labor commentary remains EquityWen.Zhang@morganstanley.comStrategist +1 212 761-1732

limited but is increasing.M

We leveraged an LLM to analyze approximately >17,000 conference transcripts and

track how management teams are communicating the quantifiable benefits of AI

adoption to investors and AI's impact on employment.

Investors have been concerned about the transition from companies promoting

tokenmaxxing (encouraging employees to use as much AI compute as possible) to a

more cost-conscious approach to AI use and what that means for AI Adoption.

Against this backdrop, company discussions of the benefits they are seeing from AI

adoption remain robust.

The share of companies citing quantifiable benefits from AI adoption increased again

for MS AI Adopters. In 2Q26, 40% of companies identified as "adopters" by our

analysts mentioned at least one quantitative impact, up from 21% in 2Q25 and

37% in 1Q26.