Despite romantic associations, Atlanta has always been more a commercial city than an ante-bellum monument. It is the major center of regional commerce, and boasts an especially strong convention and trade show business. According to the ranking of world cities undertaken by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network (GaWC) and based on the level of presence of global corporate service organisations, Atlanta is considered a "Gamma World City."

Several major national and international companies are headquartered in Atlanta or its nearby suburbs, including four Fortune 100 companies: The Coca-Cola Company (started in Atlanta), Home Depot (started in Atlanta), BellSouth, and United Parcel Service in adjacent Sandy Springs. Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus donated more than 200 million dollars to build the new Georgia Aquarium. The headquarters of wireless giant Cingular can be found a short distance inside the perimeter on I-75. Delta Air Lines is also headquartered in Atlanta (which it maintains a hub at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport) and is a major employer. Newell Rubbermaid is one of the most recent companies to relocate its headquarters to the metro area (Sandy Springs). 14 Fortune 500 are headquartered in Atlanta (the 3rd largest concentration of company headquarters behind New York City & Houston) and over 75% of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the Atlanta area. In the international world, Atlanta is home to about 1,250 different international firms placing it, in recent years, on or at the top of the list of cities in which to do business.

Among the bad things to hit Atlanta's economy is the closing of General Motor's Doraville Assembly plant in Doraville around 2008, and the Ford Motor Company's Atlanta Assembly plant in Hapeville in 2006. The combined job loss is estimated to be from 6,000 to 8,000. However, Kia is planning to build an assembly plant near West Point, Georgia.Just west of Midtown, a former Atlantic Steel plant has been redeveloped as Atlantic Station, a mixed-use urban renewal project combining housing, retail, and office space, and promoted as part of the solution to Atlanta's serious traffic and air quality problems. The metro area has one of America's longest average daily commutes, and is one of the most car-dependent cities on the planet due both to suburban sprawl and underfunded mass transit systems. It also has a reputation as being one of the most dangerous for pedestrians, as far back as 1949 when Gone with the Wind author Margaret Mitchell was struck by a speeding car and killed.

The city is a major cable television programming source; CNN Center, headquarters of the Cable News Network, is in Atlanta where the network was founded by Ted Turner, and The Weather Channel broadcasts from just outside of town. In addition to CNN, Time Warner's other networks from Atlanta include Cartoon Network/Adult Swim and companion channel Boomerang, TNT, Turner South, CNN International, CNN en Español, CNN Headline News, CNN Airport Network, and TBS. Atlanta's WTBS channel 17 (originally WTCG) was Turner's start in television in the 1970s; after he bought the struggling UHF TV station, he turned it into a "Superstation" broadcasting both locally and nationally on the emerging cable providers. Atlanta's WSB was the first AM radio station in the South.