Winners And Losers Of AI: The New Divide Reshaping US Market Leadership

Artificial intelligence was supposed to lift technology stocks across the board. Instead, it may be redrawing the map of U.S. sector leadership.

Over the past six months, investors have rewarded industries with lower exposure to AI-driven labor automation — and punished those where labor costs make up a larger share of revenues.

The result is a widening performance gap between asset-heavy, goods-producing sectors and asset-light, service-oriented industries.

A new analysis from Goldman Sachs suggests this is not random.

The First Screen: Labor Exposure To AI

Goldman Sachs developed a company-level metric estimating exposure to AI automation by analyzing job functions and overlaying them with task-level measures of AI capability.

That estimate is then combined with each firm's labor-cost-to-revenue ratio. The result: a forward-looking gauge of how vulnerable a company's wage bill may be to AI disruption.

Industries with the highest labor costs as a percentage of total revenue include software, communication and professional services, consumer services, banks and financial services, as well as media and entertainment.

At the other end of the spectrum, sectors such as retail goods, energy, equity REITs, tobacco, autos, food and beverage, materials, utilities and semiconductors carry a significantly lower labor-cost share relative to revenue, making them less directly exposed to AI-driven wage disruption.

It's a double-edged sword.

AI can boost productivity — but it can also compress margins or displace white-collar labor, raising uncertainty around future cost structures and earnings visibility.

The market appears to be treating high labor exposure as a risk factor.

The Second Screen: The Asset Heavy Advantage

Goldman's second screen looks at tangible asset intensity — defined as assets (excluding cash and intangibles) relative to revenues.

Industries requiring significant physical capital — rigs, mines, machinery and infrastructure — tend to have higher barriers to entry and lower near-term automation risk.

In recent months, asset-heavy businesses have sharply outperformed asset-light peers, beyond what macro conditions alone would typically explain.

The divergence has been particularly pronounced within TMT, where physical infrastructure-linked names have fared far better than software-centric firms.

Goods-producing companies have also outperformed services firms, reinforcing the same theme.

The Sector Scoreboard

Year to date through Feb. 25, capital-intensive sectors are leading:

• Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLE): +19.8%
• Materials Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLB): +14.98%
• Industrial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLI): +11.3%

Meanwhile, asset-light and service-oriented sectors have lagged:

• Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLC): –0.63%
• Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLK): -0.7%
• Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLF): -5.75%

The divergence becomes even more pronounced at the industry level.

Top Performers:

• VanEck Oil Services ETF (NYSE:OIH): +34.17%
• VanEck Gold Miners ETF (NYSE:GDX): +30.9%
• SPDR S&P Telecom ETF (NYSE:XTL): +16.9%
• State Street SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF (NYSE:XME): +12.2%

Underperformers:

• iShares U.S. Broker-Dealers & Securities Exchanges ETF (NYSE:IAI): -3.9%
• SPDR S&P Insurance ETF (NYSE:KIE): -4.6%
• First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund (NYSE:FDN): -9.85%
• iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (NYSE:IGV): -21.3%

The contrast is striking: hard-asset, commodity-linked and capital-intensive industries are leading, while software, internet and financial services lag.

What This Divide May Be Signaling

Investors appear to be differentiating between companies anchored by tangible assets and those heavily dependent on human capital.

If AI materially reduces the economic value of certain white-collar functions, service-heavy industries could face margin compression and competitive disruption. Meanwhile, asset-heavy businesses may benefit from structural moats that are harder to replicate with code.

Whether this rotation proves temporary or structural remains the key question.

For now, AI is not just driving a technology narrative — it is reshaping sector leadership, creating a clear divide between the market's winners and losers.

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