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  • Global Research
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    • Data science

AI: Adopt & outperform

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What’s on the mind of the world’s major listed companies? The mood is strongly positive in a bumper Q3 2025 earnings season as AI adoption picks up, according to our analysis of earnings calls.

We use AI-powered sentiment analysis to analyse what company management teams are saying about key themes. Our proprietary Guidance Sentiment Indicator (GSI), for instance, tracks how positively or negatively companies are discussing forward looking statements on earnings.

Resilient, positive

Our Q3 2025 analysis shows that the US GSI is positive – and improving further. Perhaps this isn’t surprising when you consider that US companies continued to deliver strong results in Q3, with a year-over-year earnings growth rate for S&P 500 companies of more than 13% (at the time of our analysis). European sentiment is also positive, but more muted. What could explain the difference?

It’s the AI effect

Firms adopting AI continue to outperform, according to our analysis, with the US adoption rate (48%) almost double that of Europe (25%). Companies in the US are discussing a broad and innovative range of AI use cases with the potential to drive returns.

AI adoption in US is high across most sectors

Source: HSBC, LSEG TRKD, FTSE Russell

However, in Europe adoption is much slower

Source: HSBC, LSEG TRKD, FTSE Russell

In the US, AI adoption is high across most sectors. We are currently seeing on average 48% adoption rate, with certain sectors like tech and communication services at about 70%. Meanwhile in Europe, companies are lagging. The average adoption rate among sectors is 25%, with only 96 companies discussing active adoption of AI techniques as compared to US’s 265. We think this might be one key reason the GSI indicator for US companies is leading European counterparts.

Tariffs mitigation discussions spike

We also used our analytical tools to identify topics trending in the US in this earnings season. Companies were often discussing the government shutdown and a lot of AI-related terms from “Agentic AI” to “AI-powered”, “AI platform”, and “AI driven”. However, “tariff” remains a key topic of discussion among company management, with more companies now (vs earlier in the year) discussing passing through costs to end-consumers. Firms also discussed reorganizing supply chains to mitigate tariff impacts in the near term.

Trending terms in US earnings calls in Q3 2025

Source: HSBC, LSEG TRKD, FTSE Russell

Labour market in US cooling, not cracking

Finally, amidst the US government shutdown, we look at the balance of hiring/firing discussions among US corporates. Although we do see a spike in “firing” discussions, outside of large caps, “hiring” discussions are also quite prominent.

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To learn more about HSBC Global Investment Research, please email us at AskResearch@hsbc.com.

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