AI and Growth: Where Do We Stand?

Philippe Aghion, Simon Bunel · Working paper (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco conference) · 1 Jun 2024

Where this sits in the debate

Will AI actually boost productivity and growth? · its finding supports the claim (why studies differ)
How fast will the impact arrive? · its finding supports the claim (why studies differ)

Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model (AI-written).

Key takeaway AI-written

The authors estimate AI's effect on productivity growth over the next decade with two approaches. Comparing AI with past technological revolutions gives 0.8-1.3 percentage points of extra annual productivity growth, while a task-based approach in the spirit of Acemoglu (2024), using their own reading of the evidence, gives a median of 0.68 percentage points of extra TFP growth.

The paper in three steps AI-written

Written by an AI agent from the paper's abstract, which is the primary source and is quoted below.

The question

How much could AI raise aggregate productivity growth over the next decade?

The approach

Two approaches: an analogy with past technological revolutions, and the task-based formula from Acemoglu (2024) recomputed with the authors' own reading of the empirical literature.

The findings

The historical-analogy approach implies 0.8 to 1.3 percentage points of extra annual productivity growth; the task-based approach gives a median of 0.68 points of extra annual TFP growth.

How to read it: macro-projection. A model-based scenario, not a measurement — assumptions drive the range; compare against other projections.

Limitations and counterpoints AI-written

The estimates exclude AI's effects on the production of ideas and rest on the authors' interpretation of existing micro evidence.

Source excerpt

In this note we use two alternative approaches to estimate the macroeconomic impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on productivity growth over the next decade. The first approach exploits the parallel between the AI revolution and past technological revolutions. The second approach follows Acemoglu (2024) and the task-based framework, which we revisit using our own reading of the existing empirical literature on the various component of the task-based formula. Based on the first approach, we estimate that the AI revolution should increase aggregate productivity growth by between 0.8 and 1.3pp per year over the next decade. Using the second approach but with our own reading of the recent empirical literature on the various components of the task-based formula, we obtain a median estimate of 0.68pp additional annual total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Our estimates do not take into account the fact that AI automates tasks not only in the production of goods and services, our focus in this note, but also in the production of ideas.

About this publication

Industry report. An industry or consultancy report — produced outside academic peer review.

Published: 2024 (29 months ago)
Citations: Not recorded for this source

□ added to this collection in 2026.

Philippe Aghion signed the wemustactnow.ai letter — part of why this paper is in the collection.

Cited elsewhere in this guide

State of the debate: Will AI actually boost productivity and growth?