The buzz about artificial intelligence continues during the second-quarter earnings season, with many executives still trying to work the theme into conference calls with Wall Street analysts.

However, after nearly two years of market enthusiasm, companies that did not mention AI on their earnings calls actually performed slightly better over the past few weeks.

More than 40% of S&P 500 companies, or 210 companies, mentioned “AI” in their second-quarter earnings calls since mid-June, according to a FactSet report published Friday. The number of companies mentioning AI is just one shy of the record set during the first quarter of this year.

Shares of companies that mention AI have risen an average of 12.2% so far this period, still a few percentage points higher than those that don’t, according to FactSet data. But those gains appear to have faded over the summer.

“For S&P 500 companies that mentioned ‘AI’ during their second-quarter earnings calls, the average stock price change since June 30 was 4.1%,” FactSet senior earnings analyst John Butters said in the report. “For S&P 500 companies that did not mention ‘AI’, the average stock price change since June 30 was 6.1%.”

Of course, there are a lot of factors that can drive stocks up or down at any given moment. But the trend comes after months of explosive growth, driven by the potential of artificial intelligence for big tech companies and continued signs of consumer caution and low expectations.

Many analysts still see AI as a massive long-term opportunity that could revolutionize work itself and boost corporate profitability in the process. But others worry about how long it will take for the gains to materialize and are more concerned about the cost of building the technology and its current quality.

Shares of chipmaker Nvidia Corp NVDA.O took a hit last month after its sales outlook beat expectations but failed to please investors, with the nearly $3 trillion company seen by many analysts as at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom.

The article is forwarded from: Jinshi Data