Mention AI in earnings calls ... and watch that share price leap
- Reference: 1695032712
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/09/18/mention_ai_in_earnings_calls/
- Source link:
Here at The Register , we’ve seen a noticeable uptick in the number of PR pitches involving artificial intelligence, whether that is products for creating or running AI models, AI services, or AI being infused into existing tech like pixie dust sprinkled everywhere in an attempt to add some pizzazz to a jaded portfolio.
Everyone, it seems, is very keen to jump on the bandwagon to such an extent that it's starting to put us in mind of the [1]South Sea Bubble or the [2]tulip mania of the Dutch Republic. However, there is perhaps method in the tech execs' madness.
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According to stock market research outfit [4]WallStreetZen , companies that mentioned AI in their earnings calls saw an average increase in their stock price of 4.6 percent, compared with an average stock price rise of only 2.4 percent for companies that didn't mention the magic letters.
[5]
[6]
WallStreetZen said it gathered the quarterly earnings call transcripts of S&P 500 companies from between Q1 2022 and Q2 2023. It then counted the number of mentions of AI and related terms such as machine learning or robots during the calls, and analyzed each AI-related statement using SentiStrength, a sentiment analysis tool.
Next stop was looking at the three-day change in the price of each company's stock, beginning with the date the transcript was released.
[7]
Overall, 67 percent of companies whose execs mentioned AI on the earnings call saw a rise in the stock price. Among tech companies, the figure was 71 percent of companies, with an average increase of 11.9 percent, according to WallStreetZen.
Adobe, Meta, and Nvidia are among the top companies whose stock prices increased the most after mentioning artificial intelligence, with Nvidia's stock increasing by 26.3 percent after AI was mentioned 150 times in their earnings calls.
[8]Pope goes fire and brimstone on the dangers of AI
[9]So much for CAPTCHA then – bots can complete them quicker than humans
[10]Netflix offers up to $900,000 for AI product manager while actors strike for protection
[11]California man's business is frustrating telemarketing scammers with chatbots
The number of AI mentions in earnings calls during the second quarter of this year has increased by 366 percent compared to the prior quarter, WallStreetZen claims.
This gratuitous peppering of earnings calls with mentions of AI had already been noted by The Register , with a [12]report from July noting that during Microsoft's results confab for Q4 of its fiscal 2023, AI was referenced no fewer than 175 times.
But it doesn't stop there. AI is supposed to have played its part in Arm's glittering return to being a (partly) [13]publicly traded company , with its share price hitting a high of $69 after opening at $51 yesterday.
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This is despite Arm not particularly being an AI company in any meaningful way, although that didn't stop CEO Rene Haas from making [15]statements such as "it's impossible to build AI without Arm," and Softbank's CFO [16]claiming that Arm is "in the leading position of the artificial intelligence revolution."
Other companies have also seen their share prices boosted by the fact that they supply hardware used in AI processing, as we [17]noted of Dell and Samsung, although the obvious leader here is Nvidia with its GPUs that are like gold dust at the moment.
Worryingly, some of the hype around AI seems to involve replacing humans with algorithms, and some publishers have even gone as far as to have AI produce some of their content for them, such as the [18]Daily Mirror and tech site [19]CNET . But fear not, we can reassure readers that the content here at The Register is written by sentient beings. Mostly. ®
Get our [20]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/South-Sea-Bubble/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZQh0JdjH2hWds0bXTWcigwAAAZM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.wallstreetzen.com/blog/ai-mention-moves-stock-prices-2023/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZQh0JdjH2hWds0bXTWcigwAAAZM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZQh0JdjH2hWds0bXTWcigwAAAZM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZQh0JdjH2hWds0bXTWcigwAAAZM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/09/pope_ai/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/15/so_much_for_captcha_then/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/26/netflix_ai_manager/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/03/jolly_roger_telephone_company/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/26/ai_mentioned_175_times_during/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/14/arm_ipo/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZQh0JdjH2hWds0bXTWcigwAAAZM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://finance.yahoo.com/video/arm-holdings-goes-public-56-161713937.html
[16] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/IPO/Arm-is-leader-of-the-AI-revolution-SoftBank-CFO-says
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/01/dell_samsung_ai/
[18] https://www.standard.co.uk/business/daily-mirror-publisher-reach-ai-writing-articles-express-star-chatgpt-b1065292.html
[19] https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/6/23750761/cnet-ai-generated-stories-policy-update
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: BT for example?
When they said they would get rid of something like 1/5 of the workforce and replace them with AI? What actual planet are they living on if they think that's actually going to happen?
I mean, they got rid of most of their customer service department ages ago and replaced them with a circular-referencing combination of a "smart" (i.e. "not smart") phone system, website FAQs and a chatbot, none of which are capable of solving any real-world problem that you're likely to have. I don't think stirring AI into that mix will make it much worse, apart from making it that much harder to talk to an actual person (who might or might not be empowered enough to do anything about your problem anyway).
Re: BT for example?
"... a circular-referencing combination of a "smart" (i.e. "not smart") phone system, website FAQs and a chatbot, none of which are capable of solving any real-world problem that you're likely to have..."
Sadly this seems to be the way most corporate "help" systems have gone or are heading
But fear not, we can reassure readers that the content here at The Register is written by sentient beings.
Being "sentient" is in no way a prerequisite for being a natural biological person with any intellect whatsoever.
Therefore, I submit that there is 1) a real chance that El Reg is a blob of binary computers blabbering bullshit beyond believe, 2) a real chance that El Reg is a gathering of a babbling bumbling band of baboons and only magic keeps it together, 3) a real chance that reality is unreal and 4) a real chance El Reg hacks are sentient but do not get the hang of Thursdays.
Let's say, the jury is still out on this one. In the meantime, have a proper Monday beer to pretend it is Friday already.
"AI" formerly 'known' as "cloud-based" "*-Tier solution" and "client-server"
Here I am trying to remember all of the overhyped techno-buzzwords used in advertising, to try to ROOK people into buying into some "solution" that probably does not work, or at least not any BETTER than the old one.
So is a 5-tier solution better than a 3-tier? How about ONE HUNDRED TIERS! I'm left with nothing but tears...
Back in the 90's I worked on a program with a name that started with "AI". It used code generated by an algorithm that took a lot of parameters into consideration as part of its decision algorithm. By current standards it was primitive, but it did ok. Company ended getting purchased by a large company that was a customer, when it went started having financial problems. (I left before that)
Marketeers never cease to hype up 'snake oil' do they...
On a related note seems Warner signed a new "AI pop star", complete with a pretty decent single, and an "uncanny valley" video to go along with it:
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yi_KxMxvVg
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yi_KxMxvVg
BT for example?
When they said they would get rid of something like 1/5 of the workforce and replace them with AI?
What actual planet are they living on if they think that's actually going to happen? Firstly, the unions won't have it. Secondly that technology doesn't exist and probably won't spring into existence this decade. I think in the coming decades we probably will have AI which will be able to do a lot of the work that humans currently do. But that probably means we'll just do a lot more, and need a similar amount of people. That's usually how these things work out.