---
title: "What Investment Data Implies about the AI Transition · AI Fault Line"
url: https://aifaultline.com/research/p/title-e569790f5acf45ca/
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/)

# What Investment Data Implies about the AI Transition

Jessica Wachter, Jonathan Wachter · NBER Working Papers · June 2026

[Read original source](https://www.nber.org/papers/w35290)

Where this sits in the debate

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

- [How fast will the impact arrive?](https://aifaultline.com/debate/pace/)

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

## Abstract

The five largest U.S. technology firms spent $380 billion on capital expenditure in 2025 and are forecast to spend roughly double that in 2026. These firms risk bankruptcy unless expected profits grow commensurately. We embed this observation in a two-sector open-economy model with rare productivity

## 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]

## More on this topic

Related by theme, not necessarily by method or conclusion.

- [Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-2139-ssrn-4573321/) SSRN · 2023

- [Generative AI at Work](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1093-qje-qjae044/) The Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2025

- [The Impact of AI on Developer Productivity: Evidence from GitHub Copilot](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-48550-arxiv-2302-06590/) arXiv · 2023

- [The Productivity J-Curve: How Intangibles Complement General Purpose Technologies](https://aifaultline.com/research/p/doi-10-1257-mac-20180386/) American Economic Journal Macroeconomics · 2020

Overview assembled automatically from collected metadata.
[How this site is built](https://aifaultline.com/about/).