When Fortune published its AIQ 50 list, ranking the Fortune 500 companies that have made the most progress generating a significant impact with artificial intelligence, it perhaps came as no surprise that this cohort would be led by an AI hyperscaler, Google parent Alphabet.
Other tech giants featured on the list included Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms, a contingent that’s spending tens of billions of dollars annually to develop large language models and AI chips to get a competitive edge in the AI arms race.
But the AIQ 50 wasn’t only dominated by the tech sector. In fact, there were 17 other sectors with representation, including financials, health care, retail, energy, and transportation.
This expansive embrace and quick adoption of generative AI differs from past technological advancements. The widespread adoption of the internet in the late 1990s caught many industries completely off guard, including physical retail and banking. More recently, the expensive and complex IT-led shift to cloud computing saw multiple sectors lag behind, including airlines, agricultural producers, and hospitals.
Kate Smaje, a senior partner at consulting giant McKinsey, says that unlike other digital transformation efforts, with AI there have been notable winners and losers within each sector, rather than entire industries falling behind on adoption.
