Apollo Global Management’s chief economist has a message for anyone banking on AI to deliver quick returns: patience might not be a virtue the market can afford.
Torsten Sløk warned on June 30 that the gap between massive AI capital expenditures and actual productivity gains outside the tech sector could trigger a painful repricing across equity markets. Apollo has assigned a roughly 30% probability that the US economy enters a recession in 2026.
The mismatch problem
Wall Street is pricing in strong free cash flow recoveries for hyperscalers starting in 2028.
Sløk’s argument centers on a timing disconnect. The tech sector is generating genuine AI productivity improvements, but the rest of the economy, the industries that actually need to adopt and benefit from these tools, is moving much slower.
