Economic Index report: Economic primitives
Anthropic (AI lab research) · 15 Jan 2026
Read original sourceOpen accessNot peer reviewed
Where this sits in the debate
- Will AI actually boost productivity and growth? · its finding: it depends (why studies differ)
- Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates?
Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model (AI-written).
Source excerpt
This report introduces new metrics of AI usage to provide a rich portrait of interactions with Claude in November 2025, just prior to the release of Opus 4.5. These “primitives”—simple, foundational measures of how Claude is used, which we generate by asking Claude specific questions about anonymized Claude.ai and first-party (1P) API transcripts—cover five dimensions relevant to AI’s economic impact: user and AI skills, how complex tasks are, the degree of autonomy afforded to Claude, how successful Claude is, and whether Claude is used for personal, educational, or work purposes. The results reveal striking geographic variation, real-world estimates of AI task horizons, and a basis for revised assessments of Claude's macroeconomic impact. The data we release alongside this report are the most comprehensive to date, covering five new dimensions of AI use, consumer and firm use, and country and region breakdowns for Claude.ai. In the first chapter, we revisit findings from our previous Economic Index report published in September 2025. We find: While substantial concentration remains, since our last report Claude usage has become noticeably more evenly distributed across US states. If sustained, usage per capita would be equalized across the country in 2-5 years. In the second chapter we discuss the motivation for and introduce our new economic primitives, including how they were selected and operationalized, and their limitations. We additionally present evidence that our primitives capture directionally accurate aspects of underlying usage patterns as compared to external benchmarks. In chapters three and four we use these primitives to further investigate implications for adoption and productivity. We find: These results provide a new window into how AI is currently impacting the economy. Knowing the success rate of tasks gives a more accurate picture of which tasks might be automated, how impacted certain jobs might be, and how labor productivity will change. Me
About this publication
Lab or institute research, not peer reviewed. A report or blog post published by an AI lab or research institute on its own site. It has not been through independent peer review, and the publisher may have a stake in the findings.
- Published
- 2026 (9 months ago)
- 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.
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