Goldman Sachs has looked into the issue and is convinced that it will be companies in particular that have extremely high personnel costs and, at the same time, great potential for automation.
The Goldman strategists use very specific figures. They take wage costs as a percentage of turnover and combine them with the proportion of jobs that can be automated using AI. The result is the so-called Phase 4 list of the AI revolution. AI hyperscalers, semiconductor values and data centers correspond to phase 1, phase 2 and phase 3 respectively.
Which sectors are phase 4 candidates? The answer is: software & services, professional services such as management consultancy, tax consultancy, insurance and IT services, because AI loves repetitive knowledge work.
The specific winners in the area of Banking & Finance include Bank of America $BAC (-0,14%)KeyCorp $KEY (+1,77%), PNC $PNC (-0,59%), US Bancorp $TBBK and Truist $TFC (-0,5%). Half of banking work is document processing - that's AI fodder.
For insurers Goldman Sachs calls Aon $AON (-0,62%)Marsh & McLennan $MMC (-0,75%), Willis Towers Watson $WTW (+0%). When AI checks insurance claims, it is a cost revolution.
In the area of IT service providers & consultants the list includes Accenture $ACN (-0,93%), Cognizant $CTSH (+0,54%)EPAM $EPAM (+0,82%)IBM $IBM (+0,13%), Twilio $TWLO (+1,46%), DXC $DXC (+1,02%) and SAIC $SAIC (-0,29%). These companies have consultants - and a large part of their activities can be automated with AI.
Among the software-specialists, Guidewire $GWRE (-0,25%), Manhattan Associates $MANH (+1,31%), Pegasystems $PEGA (+5,61%) and Tyler Technologies $TYL (+0,47%) are mentioned. These are companies that build software for the management of companies - and AI will allow them to deliver their products faster and more cheaply.
In the area of Healthcare Services & Life Science Tools Goldman names Labcorp $LH (-0,89%)IQVIA $IQV (+0,45%) and Certara $CERT (-3,83%)because AI is already involved in medical documentation, study evaluation and diagnostics.
What makes Phase 4 shares so exciting? Every working hour saved has a direct impact on the margin. High productivity stands for high profit leverage. The advantage: unlike hyperscalers or chip companies, they don't need huge investments, but can simply use AI. This means less risk, more leverage and a lower valuation.
Conclusion:
Currently everything revolves around Nvidia $NVDA (-0,35%) , AMD $AMD (+0,85%), TSMC $2330 - i.e. phase 2 stocks. But the next wave is not coming for companies that use AI.
Source text (excerpt) & graphic: Welt, 03.12.25
