--- title: "Make or buy AI? Evidence on AI sourcing decisions and workforce outcomes · AI Fault Line" url: https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1080-13504851-2026-2749673/ description: "AI Fault Line is a neutral, evidence-cited field guide to why experts looking at the same developments disagree about AI's effect on productivity, jobs, inequality, regulation and the pace of change." --- [Research](https://aifaultline.com/research/) # Make or buy AI? Evidence on AI sourcing decisions and workforce outcomes Oscar Stålnacke, Ebrahim Bazrafshan, Amin Sofla · Applied Economics Letters · 14 Oct 2026 [Read original source](https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2026.2749673) Open access Where this sits in the debate - [Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/jobs/) Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model ([AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)). ## Abstract We examine how firms acquire artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and how their AI sourcing decisions relate to workforce outcomes. Using Swedish enterprise surveys from 2019 and 2021 linked to financial statements and employer–employee data, we directly observe whether firms adopt AI and whether they outsource AI-related activities. AI adoption is concentrated among larger firms. Among adopters, pre-existing cost pressure is associated with outsourcing. Relative to non-adopters, both in-house adopters and outsourcers have higher subsequent employment and persistently higher shares of university-educated and computer-science (CS)-educated workers, with no further change in workforce composition in the year after adoption. Workforce outcomes are statistically indistinguishable between in-house adopters and outsourcers. ## About this publication **Academic journal.** Published in an academic journal — typically peer-reviewed before publication, though indexing alone doesn't guarantee review depth. Published 2026 (recently) Citations 0 (OpenAlex) 0 citations recorded by OpenAlex — too few 2026 papers in this collection for a fair comparison. [Chart: published 2026] ## More on this topic Related by theme, not necessarily by method or conclusion. - [The Effects of Generative AI on High Skilled Work: Evidence from Three Field Experiments with Software Developers](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-2139-ssrn-4945566/) SSRN · 2024 - [GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-48550-arxiv-2303-10130/) arXiv · 2023 - [Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1126-science-adh2586/) Science · 2023 - [The simple macroeconomics of AI](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1093-epolic-eiae042/) Economic Policy · 2024 Overview assembled automatically from collected metadata. [How this site is built](https://aifaultline.com/about/).