Not Just for Tech Giants: The Economic Payoff of LLM‐Measured AI Adoption in Nontechnology Firms

Technology firms dominate AI narratives, but the economic implications of AI in traditional industries remain underexplored. We develop a firm‐level AI adoption indicator using ERNIE, a Chinese large language model. Using this measure, we find that AI adoption significantly enhances the value of nontechnology firms. Mechanism analyses show that AI adoption improves productivity, innovation performance and financing conditions. The effects are stronger for firms with greater dynamic capability, favourable information environments, competitive positions, larger size, private ownership and eastern regional locations. Our study provides evidence on the economic consequences of AI and a novel AI adoption measure for future research.