Companies are beginning to point to AI returns in their quarterly results, though the evidence is uneven. Santander says its AI initiatives generated 194 million euros in business value over the first nine months of 2026, and Novartis's chief executive said this was the first quarter he has seen AI improve the company's profit and loss on a tangible basis. At the same time, other firms say the benefits are hard to isolate or not yet visible at scale.

What the Earnings Calls Said

CNBC's November 1 roundup collects several examples from the third-quarter reporting season.

  • Santander: AI initiatives produced 194 million euros, about $216 million, in business value in the first nine months of 2026. Chief financial officer JosĂ© GarcĂ­a Cantera said AI affects both revenue and costs, but that it is hard to isolate how much comes from AI because it is embedded across processes.
  • Novartis: Third-quarter core operating income was $6.04 billion, up 10% year on year at constant currencies. The company did not quantify AI's share. CEO Vas Narasimhan called it the first quarter he has really seen AI start to improve the P&L, and said AI is also being tested to raise research and development productivity.
  • Standard Chartered: Third-quarter operating income grew 14% at constant currency, excluding notable items. CFO Manus Costello said AI is appearing everywhere across the business and helping income grow faster than costs.
  • Carlsberg: Revenue grew 4.9% in the quarter. CEO Jacob Aarup-Andersen said the brewer is not yet seeing AI benefits at scale, although AI has affected internal processes, pricing, marketing and supply chain.

Big Tech Adds Context

Technology giants offered a different kind of evidence. Meta said its AI investments were delivering substantial incremental advertising revenue, with total revenue up 26% in the quarter ended September 30. Alphabet reported that Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to nearly $31 billion in the third quarter, while growth in Google Search slowed amid concerns about AI competition.

These results sit against a very large spending backdrop. Corporate AI investment reached $581.7 billion in 2025, up 130% from the previous year, according to the Stanford HAI 2026 AI Index. Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta are expected to spend about $700 billion combined on AI infrastructure this year. Investors want measurable gains to justify spending at that scale, and the earnings season is the first broad test of whether they are appearing.

Why the Evidence Is Still Mixed

The examples are encouraging, but they come with limits that the companies themselves acknowledge.

  • Santander and Novartis could not fully attribute their gains to AI, so the figures describe contribution rather than proof.
  • Carlsberg said its benefits are not yet at scale.
  • Google Search growth slowed, which raises questions about how AI competition affects established businesses.
  • The CNBC piece does not include independent analyst assessments; the skepticism comes from the companies and from the framing of the article.

A second write-up of the same trend, from Tech Buzz, treats Santander and Novartis as early signals and describes them as canaries in the coal mine. It also concedes that not every AI investment is delivering results and that the gains come from targeted deployments with clear use cases rather than broad spending. That article gives no figures of its own, so the numbers above rest on CNBC's reporting.

Why It Matters

For executives, the lesson is that AI value is showing up first where use cases are specific. Banks cite customer service, fraud and lending processes. Pharmaceutical companies cite research productivity and trial design. In both cases the benefits are tied to defined workflows that can be measured, rather than to general-purpose experimentation.

For investors, the signal is more cautious. A single quarter of positive commentary does not establish broad profitability, and the companies describing gains are often unable to give a clean attribution. The same earnings season also highlighted record infrastructure spending at some large technology firms, so cost remains part of the equation.

What to Watch Next

  • Whether more companies begin to quantify AI's contribution, as Santander did, rather than describe it qualitatively.
  • Whether the gap between early adopters and firms like Carlsberg, which are not yet seeing scale benefits, narrows in coming quarters.
  • Whether cloud growth at the hyperscalers continues to justify capital spending near $700 billion.
  • Whether analysts begin to test company claims independently.

Corporate AI is moving from promise to accounting. The first numbers are modest and partly unattributable, but they mark a shift in how companies talk about the technology: less about potential, more about the line items it touches. The next few reporting seasons will show whether that shift deepens or stalls.

How to Evaluate the Claims

When reading earnings commentary on AI, apply a few filters. First, check whether the figure is quantified and attributed. Santander's 194 million euros is specific; Novartis's "tangible basis" is vague. Second, ask whether the company is isolating AI's impact or citing general business growth. Standard Chartered linked a 14% operating income jump partly to AI, but did not say what share came from the technology. Third, look at comparables. Carlsberg's absence of scale benefits is notable because it shows even large enterprises are still experimenting rather than deploying mature solutions.

Investors are accustomed to corporate optimism about new technologies, so the fact that earnings calls included cautionary notes is worth noting. Most companies that mentioned AI acknowledged they could not fully attribute gains to it, and the outlier—Carlsberg—admitted it is not seeing scale benefits yet. That candor suggests a market in transition rather than one in full deployment.

The Outlook

The next few quarters will test whether these early wins hold. If enterprise AI gains continue to appear in earnings, shareholders will have the signal they wanted. If the figures flatten or the anecdotes dry up, the narrative will shift back to cost and caution. For now, the earnings season shows a market moving from pilot to implementation, though the road from implementation to material profitability remains uncharted.

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