A sweeping new survey of business leaders finds that artificial intelligence has delivered almost no measurable gains in productivity or employment so far. Sasha Rogelberg reports for Fortune. Among roughly 6,000 CEOs, CFOs, and other executives surveyed across the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Australia, nearly 90% said AI had no impact on their operations over the past three years.
The findings, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, show that while about two-thirds of executives reported using AI, they averaged only 1.5 hours per week. One in four said they did not use AI at work at all.
The results have prompted economists to revisit a concept from the 1980s. In 1987, Nobel laureate Robert Solow observed that computers were failing to show up in productivity statistics despite widespread adoption. Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok now draws a direct parallel: “AI is everywhere except in the incoming macroeconomic data.”
Still, executives remain optimistic. Respondents forecast a 1.4% productivity increase and 0.8% output growth over the next three years.
Some economists believe a turnaround is already underway. Stanford’s Erik Brynjolfsson points to a U.S. productivity jump of 2.7% last year, which he attributes to companies beginning to reap the benefits of AI investment.
Slok argues the key variable is implementation. “The value creation is not the product,” he said, “but how generative AI is used and implemented in different sectors in the economy.”
