Where the S&P 500's gain came from.
From 30 November 2022 to 9 October 2026, 93 AI-exposed companies, 19% of the S&P 500, supplied 71% of its gain. Their share of the index's value rose from 32% to 53%.
How we counted
An AI model scored every company in the S&P 500 since late 2022 from 0 to 3, reading its business description against a fixed rubric. We then checked the list by hand.
Scores of 2 and 3 count as AI-exposed: chips, cloud, AI software, and the power, cooling and property behind data centers. About twenty regulated utilities count because each names data-center demand as a growth driver.
Apple counts as AI-exposed. Netflix, NXP, Tesla and Uber use AI without selling the build-out, so they do not.
Gains are total returns with dividends reinvested, from 30 November 2022, the day ChatGPT launched, to 9 October 2026. Each company counts while it was in the index, weighted by market value and rebalanced monthly. Data from HF Lattice and EODHD.
For information only, not investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results. "AI-exposed" is HF's own classification.