Where does AI show up in the productivity data?

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Visions of an AI-infused world can be a little scary. Perhaps our brains become dulled when we outsource the intellectual battle to our digital assistants. Maybe—brace yourself—your brisk economic analysis will come from a confident, big language model rather than a harried human. I prefer to dream of a sunnier scenario where our new digital tools deliver huge productivity gains. So, looking at the latest data and evidence, where are the bright spots?

One is the excitingly strong overall growth in labor productivity in both the UK and the US. Admittedly, my threshold for excitement is pretty low here, but more importantly, there are simpler explanations for the upswing than an AI-powered boom. In the US, tariff uncertainty may have caused companies to be reluctant to hire, while in the UK, a higher minimum wage may have caused low-paid workers to leave…