Is AI Really Increasing Productivity?

If you or your organization uses AI, you’ll have an anecdotal answer to this question. 

I do. For myself personally, the answer is 100% “Yes!”

But is it really helping across the board? 

The answer is also “Yes!” And it will increase over the coming years. At least according to this paper.

We find that each year of model progress reduced task time by 8%, with 56% of gains driven by increased compute and 44% by algorithmic progress. However, productivity gains were significantly larger for non-agentic analytical tasks compared to agentic workflows requiring tool use. These findings suggest continued model scaling could boost U.S. productivity by approximately 20% over the next decade.

Either AI will work for you, or you’ll work for AI.