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SeedPublished 2026-10-26

Non-GAAP earnings in the AI boom

Non-GAAP earnings appear on only 6 recent papers. Technology firms report profits that exclude stock-based pay and, increasingly, the costs of AI investment, while AI start-ups report "adjusted" margins of their own design. Which adjustments mislead, and do investors see through them?

accountingfinancial reportingai

What prompted this

Since October 2025, "non-GAAP earnings" appears on 6 papers (4 in accounting journals, 2 in finance), and no other keyword in the archive names adjusted or pro forma earnings. At the same time, the gap between reported and adjusted profits has grown at the largest technology firms, through stock-based compensation, restructuring charges and, now, the depreciation of AI data centres.

Questions

  • How large is the gap between GAAP and non-GAAP earnings at AI-exposed firms, and which items explain it?
  • Do firms that exclude stock-based compensation have higher future dilution than investors expect?
  • Do the new depreciation policies for AI servers (longer useful lives) make GAAP earnings themselves less comparable, so that the adjustments go both ways?

Data that could help

Non-GAAP reconciliations from earnings releases (8-K exhibits), stock-based compensation and share counts (Compustat), depreciation policy notes and analysts' street earnings (I/B/E/S).

Next step

Collect the non-GAAP reconciliations of the 50 largest technology firms for 2019–2026 and decompose the gap by type of adjustment.

Related research activity

The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26
KeywordPapers, last 30 daysRankPapers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26*Papers, last 36 months
non-GAAP earnings0–10

Markdown version of this note: /ideas/non-gaap-earnings-in-the-ai-boom.md

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Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Non-GAAP earnings in the AI boom. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 26, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/non-gaap-earnings-in-the-ai-boom

@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-non-gaap-earnings-in-the-ai-boom,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Non-GAAP earnings in the AI boom},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/non-gaap-earnings-in-the-ai-boom}},
  urldate = {2026-10-26},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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