A MarketWatch column argues the megacap AI trade has lost momentum: through the first half of 2026 the Magnificent Seven sat below their highs while the S&P 500 rose more than 9%. Columnist David Weidner, who has scored more than 130 companies for AI adoption, names five that document real impact — Visa, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Evolent Health and Pagaya Technologies.
The Magnificent Seven — eight if SpaceX counts — were down from their highs through the first half of 2026, while the S&P 500 was up more than 9%, MarketWatch columnist David Weidner wrote. For the AI hyperscalers, by his reading, the trade has lost momentum.
Price is part of the reason. Most AI-centered businesses are overpriced at roughly 7x revenue against 2.7x for the S&P 500, Weidner wrote, and many have engaged in roundabout financing deals he likens to check kiting.
Weidner screened for deployment, not construction
Since February the columnist has been researching more than 130 companies across 14 industries to gauge their AI adoption, investments and business results, deliberately leaving out the chipmakers and model builders that sell the technology. He set the test as deployment rather than development, writing: “The question wasn’t who’s building AI. It was who’s actually deploying it.”
Roughly half of the 130 scored showed meaningful AI activity by any measure, though most sat at the awareness stage, with AI mentioned in a risk disclosure and nothing more.
Visa, Salesforce and ServiceNow lead the list
Visa carries the most documented AI commitment in the dataset, with an annual report that quantifies 26,000 employees using AI tools, 261,000 AI-powered interactions and more than 100 internal applications built on the technology. The payments network recently traded at 27x earnings, below the S&P 500 average.
Salesforce rooted its product line in an AI platform called Agentforce, backed by more than $3 billion in acquisitions, and has cut thousands of jobs while deploying AI across its customer-relationship management tools. ServiceNow, meanwhile, deployed more than $10 billion in AI acquisitions in a single year, including a $2.85 billion deal for Moveworks and a $7.75 billion deal for Armis. At a recent 67x earnings, Weidner wrote, investors pay a steep premium for a transformation that has not yet shown up in the financial results.
The two smallest names carry the most risk
Evolent Health ranks ahead of every major insurer, hospital system and health-tech platform in the index, using AI to manage prior authorization and clinical-decision support for health plans. Its stock is down 39% over the past year, and its $654 million market cap is small enough that most institutional investors cannot touch it.
Pagaya Technologies uses AI to make consumer-lending decisions for banks and lenders, and ranks ahead of Goldman Sachs and Netflix on documented AI adoption. The fintech firm’s market cap is about $1.4 billion, and its stock is down 45% over the past year.
Both catches sit outside the technology: Pagaya operates in the subprime-adjacent lending market, and Evolent depends on health-plan relationships that can disappear quickly. The companies that have gone all in on AI and can prove it in filings, workforce decisions and capital allocation are trading at a discount to those that have not, Weidner wrote.
Source: MarketWatch
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