Real AI usage is already changing which companies investors think will gain or lose value.

The study uses 380 trillion tokens from OpenRouter to estimate where real AI demand is growing across firms, countries, and tasks.

Then they checked which companies’ stocks moved when AI usage went up.

Those companies later earned higher stock returns.

It turns token growth, spending growth, and user growth into one AI demand signal.

Then it checks which companies’ stock prices move with that signal, calling that sensitivity AI beta.

Firms with higher AI beta later earn higher returns, with the strongest gap coming from closed models, paid users, experienced users, and long prompts.

The effect is not just a tech-stock rally, because it remains after controlling for tech, semiconductors, AI exchange-traded funds, and AI search interest.

The market sees AI exposure most positively in interactive work like communication and instruction, and less positively in analytical, scientific, and operations-control work.

The study basically concluded that actual AI consumption already seems to carry a market price, so AI is being treated as an economic force that shifts value across firms and jobs.

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– arxiv. org/abs/2606.30583v2

Title: "AI Premium"