By Gary Marcus
Publication Date: 2026-06-07 15:33:00
I’ve just seen a graphic by John Burn-Murdoch on the FT that really gets to the heart of something I’ve been trying to articulate. AI produces a lot of output (which fits many people’s informal idea of ​​productivity), but hasn’t delivered much in terms of ROI for many companies (according to studies from MIT, McKinsey, Bain, and many others) and hasn’t made a significant difference in GDP.
The FT’s special graphic happens to be about mobile apps (h/t Jen Zhu). But you could make similar charts in many areas: lots of nominal productivity, but no big real-world impact.
Something similar could be said about books, for example. GenAI has resulted in many more books, but it’s not clear whether these are better books or whether (sorry, I don’t have the data immediately available) more books are sold. Here you will find the number of books that have been available over time The Washington Post:
Book sales, however have declined slightly over the same period. And I don’t hear any argument for getting books better.
The post…
