How S&P 500 Companies Are Really Using AI: October 8, 2026 Update

The easiest AI claims to evaluate name a unit of work: an invoice, a purchase order, a phone call. This week's update has several.

The AIDE Institute tracks how S&P 500 companies are using AI, based on public evidence, and adds to the record every week.

Seven AI deployments worth a closer look

This update includes 270 new applications from 107 companies and 248 changes to previously documented initiatives. Of the new applications, 117 support internal operations and 153 appear in products and services.

Carrier Global: purchase orders in seconds

• Application: An AI agent processes purchase orders.
• Reported result: Processing time fell from 15 minutes to under 30 seconds per purchase order.
• Why it matters: A before and after on a single transaction is a result a reader can compare against their own process.
• Source: Fortune

Freeport-McMoRan: agents on invoice processing

• Application: Agentic AI processes invoices at the mining company.
• Reported figure: About $500 million in invoices processed in six months.
• Read carefully: The figure is the volume handled. Our record does not include a cost or time saving.
• Source: Fortune

McDonald's: machine learning in menu pricing

• Application: Machine learning recommends menu prices at the store level.
• Reported figure: Prices vary 21% across stores.
• Read carefully: The 21% is variation in prices across stores. It is not a revenue or margin result.
• Source: Quartz

Walt Disney: approved AI prompts for performance reviews

• Application: Disney encourages staff to use AI chatbots for performance reviews, with sanctioned prompts for self-assessments and goal setting.
• Reported result: None recorded.
• Why it matters: Employees get prompts the employer has approved for self-assessments and goal setting.
• Source: Business Insider

Reported by the company or its vendor

The next three come from a company newsroom or a vendor case study. Read the results as the company's or vendor's own account.

Optum Financial: AI in the call center

• Application: AI deflects simple calls and assists agents on complex ones.
• Reported result: 10 million calls handled, with 90% resolved on the first call.
• Source: Optum newsroom

Aetna Medicaid (CVS Health): project intake

• Application: An AI portfolio engine replaced manual Excel intake and RAID logging.
• Reported result: 13x ROI in four months, 468 hours reclaimed annually, and a 90% cut in manual status work.
• Source: Asana case study

Corteva: crop protection discovery on GPUs

• Application: Corteva reimplemented clustering, embedding and molecular networking on GPUs in its metabolomics pipeline for natural product crop protection discovery.
• Reported result: The pipeline runs 80 to 100 times faster.
• Source: NVIDIA case study

Activity by sector

Information Technology led this update, followed by Communication Services and Consumer Discretionary.

What to take from this update

• Three of this week's deployments automate manual back-office work: invoices at Freeport-McMoRan, purchase orders at Carrier and project intake at Aetna Medicaid.
• A number in a headline is not always a result. Freeport's $500 million is volume. McDonald's 21% is price variation.
• Who reported the figure matters. Three of the seven come from the company or a vendor.

Method note

This update covers cases added from September 25 through October 2, 2026. An application is included when a company or credible public source describes a specific use of AI. Production status and recorded results reflect the public evidence available at the time of review.

Compiled from public sources and may contain errors. Figures are as reported by companies and their vendors and have not been independently verified.