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From Google parent Alphabet, which reported earnings last week, to Microsoft on Tuesday and Amazon on Thursday, this earnings season has failed to convince Wall Street that their heavy investments in artificial intelligence (AI) have truly boosted their sales.

Stock market investors have voted with their feet, directly expressing their dissatisfaction with the financial reports of the above three giants through stock price performance. Calculated by closing price, since the release of the financial report after the market last Tuesday, Alphabet's stock price has fallen by about 8.3% as of this Friday. Microsoft's stock price has fallen by about 8.2% in the three days since the release of its financial report this week (444.85). Amazon, which released its financial report after the market on Thursday, opened 9.4% lower on Friday, fell 12.8% during the day when it hit a new low in the morning, and finally closed down about 8.8%.

Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust, commented that AI technology represents a huge opportunity that is growing. Unfortunately, the upfront investment is also huge and growing. Therefore, investors can't help but ask: Can these corporate giants get enough incremental profit growth from their investments?

Commentators said that the AI ​​returns of the three technology giants in this earnings season are not without bright spots. Their cloud computing business units have grown steadily, which is the business that has benefited most from generative AI. However, these growths are not enough to appease investors, who are increasingly eager to see the returns from huge investments in data centers and other AI infrastructure quarter after quarter.

“So far, revenues have been largely confined to the cloud business, where companies train and run AI models,” Deutsche Bank recently noted in an analysis. “However, outside of the cloud, evidence of returns on investment is more qualitative than quantitative, and the return on AI investments is still difficult to put a number on.”

Wall Street Journal mentioned that the market performance during this earnings season shows that investors are becoming increasingly impatient with technology companies' practice of making profits through heavy investments in AI. The shadow of cost is looming over technology giants, and the market is increasingly concerned about the returns of huge AI investments. In the face of market concerns, technology giants have unanimously stated that they will resolutely "burn money." After announcing the earnings report last week, Alphabet and Google CEO Pichai emphasized that the risk of underinvestment in the company's AI field is far greater than the risk of overinvestment.

Meta and Microsoft both announced this week that they expect to increase capital expenditures. Meta emphasized that capital expenditures will grow significantly in 2025, with infrastructure costs being an important driver, which will continue to support AI research and product development. Microsoft's vice president of investor relations Brett Iversen said that the company will continue to increase spending in the future to meet "strong customer demand" and expects capital expenditures in fiscal 2025 to be higher than in fiscal 2024.

Amazon's third-quarter operating profit guidance range released on Thursday was lower than analysts' expectations, and operating profit growth slowed significantly beyond expectations, with the lowest growth rate less than 3%. At a time when profits are under pressure due to star investments in AI, Amazon's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Andy Jassy also told analysts in an earnings call: "When we increase capital expenditures, it's actually a positive indicator."

Amazon's capital expenditures totaled $30.5 billion in the first half of this year, most of which was spent on AWS, its cloud business unit. Jassy said Amazon has developed complex algorithms to guide its investment decisions so that it can build enough capacity to meet demand without affecting profits. He promised that these investments are worth it because they can support AI services, which Amazon previously called a "multi-billion dollar revenue run rate business."

Compared with Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon, which all fell after their earnings reports were released, Meta, which started out as a social media company Facebook, can be said to be going against the tide. Since the earnings report was released after the market closed on Wednesday, Meta has risen by 2.8% as of Friday's close. This is a narrowing gain after it fell back on Friday and closed down 1.9%.

Meta unexpectedly raised the lower limit of its full-year capital expenditure range, also due to AI investment. However, Meta's second-quarter revenue was higher than expected. Meta CEO Zuckerberg believes that the company's spending on AI has driven improvements in ad targeting and content recommendations. He believes that Meta's huge spending on AI is a short-term sacrifice in exchange for long-term benefits.