Big Tech's Record AI Quarter Powered Largely by Firms Agreeing Each Other's AI Is Worth More

MENLO PARK— Technology companies reported the strongest AI earnings quarter on record this week, powered by $57 billion in combined paper gains on AI lab investments that appreciated primarily because other technology companies also hold AI lab investments and have been disclosing this in earnings calls.

Amazon led with a $53.4 billion gain from its Anthropic stake. Microsoft recorded $3.2 billion from Anthropic and $480 million from OpenAI. Alphabet booked outsized markups on Anthropic and SpaceX. Excluding these figures, S&P 500 earnings growth falls from 48% to 29%; Amazon's bottom line contracts from 240% to 17%; Alphabet's collapses from 300% to 23%.

A working group convened Thursday by representatives of three of the companies to model sustainable AI earnings trajectories concluded after six hours that the most reliable path to continued 40%-plus growth was additional cross-investment in AI labs, whose valuations would then appreciate, generating further paper gains reportable as AI earnings the following quarter. The working group's final recommendations were drafted by an AI assistant. The report recommended expanding the working group.

"The fundamentals have never been stronger," said a spokesperson for one of the participating companies, who declined to specify which fundamentals.

Total US AI software revenue for the quarter was independently estimated at $38 billion — nineteen billion dollars less than the paper gains. Asked to reconcile the figures, a second spokesperson clarified that the two numbers represent "different metrics measuring different things," and confirmed that both are records.

Q3 earnings guidance is scheduled for October. Anthropic's next valuation round is expected in September.