Announced 2 Nov 2026 · Sources checked
Santander: $216 million in AI business value
Spanish banking giant Santander reported that AI initiatives generated 194 million euros ($216 million) in business value in the first nine months of 2026. CFO José García Cantera told CNBC the impact spans both revenue and costs.
"This affects both revenue and costs, so we are actually in the quarter where we can actually link directly to AI a positive contribution," Cantera told CNBC's Sawdah Bhaimiya. He added that AI is "embedding in all the processes that we are conducting at the bank," making it difficult to attribute a precise percentage but clear that the technology is improving service quality.
Santander's quantification is significant because banks have been among the most aggressive investors in AI for years, but few have been willing to put a dollar figure on returns. The $216 million figure gives investors a concrete data point to evaluate the ROI of the bank's AI spending.
Novartis: first tangible P&L impact
Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan told CNBC that Q3 2026 was the first quarter where he saw AI "start to improve actually our P&L on a tangible basis." The Swiss pharmaceutical giant reported core operating income of $6.04 billion, up 10% year-on-year at constant currencies.
Narasimhan said Novartis is working on AI applications in R&D to "increase R&D productivity" and is already seeing results in marketing and sales. "We're already seeing some of the productivity you saw in the bottom-line performance of what we can do with AI from M&S [marketing & sales]," he said.
The pharmaceutical industry has been experimenting with AI for drug discovery for years, with high-profile partnerships between Big Pharma and AI companies. Novartis' CEO putting a timeline on tangible AI returns is a milestone that investors in other drug companies will be watching closely.
Standard Chartered: AI everywhere across the business
Standard Chartered CFO Manus Costello told CNBC the bank is seeing AI "appear everywhere across the business." The bank reported third-quarter operating income growth of 14% at constant currency.
"I think you can see it in the top line growth that we're delivering, and you can see it in that operating leverage that I talked about," Costello said. He said AI is helping managers build better customer relationships and generate more income.
Costello highlighted the "strong operating leverage" where income is growing much faster than costs. "Some of that is because we've been able to deploy AI tools to improve core processes and enable us to scale those up very efficiently," he said.
Carlsberg: AI benefits are real but not yet at scale
Carlsberg CEO Jacob Aarup-Andersen offered a more cautious perspective. He told CNBC the brewery is not yet seeing AI benefits at scale, but the technology has impacted internal processes, cost efficiency, commercial and pricing processes, marketing, and the supply chain.
The Danish brewer's revenue grew 4.9% in the third quarter — respectable but not AI-powered. Aarup-Andersen's frankness serves as a reminder that most companies are still in the early stages of AI deployment, and the technology's benefits are incremental rather than transformative for most.
His assessment aligns with broader data. The Stanford HAI 2026 AI Index report found that global corporate AI investment reached $581.7 billion in 2025, up 130% from the previous year. But translating that spending into bottom-line results remains uneven across industries.
Big Tech: AI revenue is real but capex fears linger
Meta said its AI investments were delivering "substantial incremental advertising revenue" in its October 21 earnings call. Total revenue jumped 26% in Q3, with AI tools now used by nearly 10 million advertisers. Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to nearly $31 billion, driven by demand for AI infrastructure and TPU chips.
But the Big Tech picture is also a cautionary tale. Alphabet had its worst trading day ever after earnings, losing $500 billion in market cap. Meta's stock fell 14% in October. Investors fear that the massive infrastructure spending — a combined $700 billion this year from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta — may not generate proportional returns.
The divergence between the positive earnings stories from Santander, Novartis, and Standard Chartered and the market's skepticism toward Big Tech AI spending highlights a core tension: enterprise AI is delivering measurable results, but the cost of the infrastructure required to power it may be too high for even the largest technology companies to sustain without a clear path to return on investment.
Common questions
Is this the first time companies have quantified AI returns?
Yes, for major non-tech enterprises. Tech companies like Microsoft and Google have attributed revenue to AI for several quarters, but Santander, Novartis, and Standard Chartered are among the first major non-tech corporations to put specific financial figures on AI's impact on their P&L.
Are AI benefits equally distributed across industries?
No. Banks and financial services appear to be ahead, with multiple CFOs reporting measurable benefits. Pharma is showing early signs. Carlsberg, in consumer goods, is seeing operational improvements but not scale benefits. Most industries are still in the early deployment phase.
Does the good news from enterprises offset Big Tech's capex fears?
Not yet. The $216 million Santander attributes to AI is tiny compared to the hundreds of billions in infrastructure spending from hyperscalers. Enterprise AI ROI is promising, but the numbers are not yet large enough to validate the massive capex commitments from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta.
Sources & further reading
How this story was made
Written by Kristian Kostov with AI assistance and checked against the linked sources. Company performance claims are attributed to the company. Analysis reflects AiLookout’s interpretation; we have not independently tested the products discussed. The cover is an AI-generated editorial illustration, not a photograph or evidence of an actual event.
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