Key insights
- Big Tech faces investor pressure to demonstrate ROI on massive AI investments. Concerns exist about a potential 'software apocalypse' where AI disrupts traditional software services like Microsoft 365. Microsoft's stock is under pressure due to these factors, highlighting the market's focus on tangible returns from AI spending and the potential for disruption in the software sector.
Yahoo Finance Tech Editor Dan Howley joins Market Catalysts to break down Big Tech's earnings outlook for Q2 as Wall Street takes a closer look at the sector's AI spending concerns and macroeconomic uncertainty.
It feels like the name of the game remains return on investment, Dan.
Yeah, basically show me the money, Julie. The companies are continuing to lay out this $650 billion in 2026. Uh that's going to be continued uh across uh Microsoft, Amazon, Google, meta. They're really the ones that are they're pushing all this spending the so-called hyperscalers. Uh and and so what investors want to see is a return on on that investment. and it's not as though this 650 billion uh is cut, you know, the end of the road. They'll continue to uh build out as the year uh years progress rather. So, don't think that this 650 billion is the last gasp of of this big investment. They may moderate over time. You may see the the increases come down. uh obviously. I you can only spend this much money for so long uh before you start to run out. Uh and so the the investors are going to be wondering, okay, when when does this start to now produce the cash that that you've been promising?
even before the war uh happened, we, you know, we had been seeing some, you know, turbulence, I guess in the tech trade.
Yeah, uh, you could say that. Microsoft's uh taking an absolute beating uh when it comes to their stock. and part of that has to do with, you know, this whole you know, show me the money thing. Uh the other has to do with the fear of this kind of, you know, software apocalypse, uh software as a service apocalypse and you know, the the thinking there is that look, these these AI companies are going to come in and just, you know, eviscerate uh companies that sell productivity software or enterprise software. And you know, there's there's two schools of thought. There's one that this is just going to be the end of uh software services like, you know, Microsoft 365 or uh uh, you know, salesforce offerings, uh or AI will be built into those offerings. and I I tend to think that it would be built into these offerings, but there's still this this kind of fear that, you know, perhaps these AI companies will just start rolling out their own productivity offerings, their own uh uh customer relationship management offerings, and that could spell big trouble for uh the existing incumbent.