Banca d'Italia studies AI's impact on corporate debt costs

Banca d’Italia has published an occasional paper analyzing how generative AI diffusion affects corporate bond issuance costs.

• The paper uses bond-level data on U.S. non-financial companies issued between January 2020 and February 2026 to test whether investors differentiate firms by their position in the AI value chain.
• It finds that hyperscalers saw a significant reduction in debt costs, while software firms experienced worse financing conditions; the publication is dated 17 September 2026 and the PDF is linked on Banca d’Italia’s site.