The AI boom has driven a sharp wedge through the technology sector, lifting infrastructure companies to record gains while dragging established software names to two-year lows, according to new analysis from investing research platform BestBrokers.
The analysis tracked every S&P 500 constituent with meaningful AI exposure and compared share prices in July 2026 against July 2024. Among the biggest declines: The Trade Desk fell 80.87%, from $99.82 to $19.10; Adobe dropped 61.08%, from $564.55 to $219.72; and Intuit lost 56.49%, falling from $632.84 to $275.35. Accenture shed 53.51%, while Workday and Salesforce fell 39.3% and 34.24% respectively.
The direction of capital tells a different story. Lumentum Holdings rose 1,194.6% over the same period. Western Digital gained 788.7%, Seagate 668.4%, Micron 615.3% and AppLovin 524.8% — all companies sitting closer to the hardware and infrastructure layer of the AI stack.
The underlying concern for software incumbents is not simply competition from AI-native tools. Investors are reassessing how much of the value these companies once captured — recurring subscription fees, billable consulting hours, proprietary creative workflows — holds up when general-purpose AI can perform equivalent tasks at lower cost. Adobe is still growing revenue at roughly 11.8% annually, but its stock has halved. Intuit beat earnings estimates in its most recent quarter while its shares were falling. Accenture reported $19.3 billion in Q3 bookings and said demand for large-scale AI transformation work remains strong. The numbers are not bad; the question investors are wrestling with is whether they could have been much better without AI disruption, or whether they will hold up at all.
Trade Desk's situation is more acute. In Q2 2026, revenue grew just 3% year-on-year to $715 million, missing expectations, and its Q3 guidance triggered a further sell-off that pushed the stock toward $12.83 — down more than 80% from its 2024 level. The company runs its own AI-powered advertising platform, Kokai, but competes against search and advertising systems from companies with significantly deeper infrastructure.
BestBrokers data analyst Alan Goldberg noted that the repricing extends beyond individual competitive threats: "The AI boom is not simply creating a new group of winners; it is changing what investors expect from established technology businesses. Companies that once benefited from recurring software revenues and high margins now have to convince investors that AI will expand their markets rather than commoditise their products. At the same time, the enormous spending on AI infrastructure is directing capital towards a very different set of businesses."
The full report, including data on AI infrastructure stocks and the broader composition of the AI economy within the S&P 500, is available via BestBrokers.
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