---
title: "Canaries in the Gold Mine: Early Productivity Gains from Artificial Intelligence Creating Organization Capital · AI Fault Line"
url: https://aifaultline.com/research/p/title-145583735c0b2364/
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/)

# Canaries in the Gold Mine: Early Productivity Gains from Artificial Intelligence Creating Organization Capital

Tania Babina, Alex X. He, Renhao Jiang · NBER Working Papers · August 2026

[Read original source](https://www.nber.org/papers/w35684)

Where this sits in the debate

- [Will AI actually boost productivity and growth?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/productivity/) · its finding: it depends ([why studies differ](https://aifaultline.com/debate/productivity/#why))

Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model ([AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)).

## Key takeaway [AI-written](https://aifaultline.com/about/)

Using a firm-level measure of AI investment based on AI-skilled employment, this NBER paper finds that AI investments are associated with productivity growth in recent years but not over the previous decade, and traces the gains to the build-up of organization capital.

## Abstract

Using a new firm-level measure of AI investment based on AI-skilled employmentspanning machine learning through generative and agentic AIwe show that AI investments are associated with productivity growth in recent years, but not over the previous decade. We trace the productivity gains to the

## About this publication

**Working paper.** A working paper — circulated for discussion before formal peer review, the standard first outlet in economics.

Published

2026

Citations

Not recorded for this source

Citation counts come from OpenAlex; none are recorded for this source — absence of a count is not absence of citations.

[Chart: published 2026]

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