Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

Marketplace All-in-One

Where's the AI productivity jump?

18 Feb 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: Where is the productivity jump with AI?

1.702 - 21.841 David Brancaccio

Where's the productivity, Artie? Artie as in Artificial Intelligence. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. Are we getting more done using all this new AI? Corporate leaders say not especially. That's according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Where's the productivity jump? Daniel Ackerman reports.

0

22.361 - 31.59 Daniel Ackerman

Researchers asked executives at nearly 6,000 companies how generative AI has affected their productivity and employment. And 80% of the time?

0

31.638 - 35.865 Gregory Thwaites

The answer was that neither of those things seems to have changed much yet.

0

35.885 - 40.372 Daniel Ackerman

Gregory Thwaites is an economist at the University of Nottingham, who co-authored the study.

0

40.753 - 46.863 Gregory Thwaites

But the answer is very much yet, because they're expecting a bigger effect over the next three years than over the past three years.

47.404 - 56.599 Daniel Ackerman

That expectation could be because the technology is improving so quickly, something Lindsay Raymond, an economist at MIT, says she sees firsthand.

56.697 - 65.768 Lindsay Raymond

So I write a lot of code, do a lot of analysis, and just the coding aid and capability, there was like this dramatic shift kind of over the holidays.

66.269 - 69.392 Daniel Ackerman

The holidays as in December, less than two months ago.

69.432 - 72.076 Lindsay Raymond

At least I feel like I'm getting more productive.

Chapter 2: How have executives responded to AI's impact on productivity?

107.44 - 127.204 David Brancaccio

According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, the number of students enrolling in computer and information science programs decreased this past fall. That's at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. It's the first drop since the first pandemic year. Our program Marketplace Tech spoke to Carrie George with the Computer Research Association.

0

127.42 - 134.066 Carrie George

We're seeing overall that declines in enrollment across computing, but that's not evenly distributed across sub-disciplines.

0

134.467 - 153.225 Carrie George

So we see that some areas such as computer science, software engineering, and information systems see lower enrollments where there are other sub-disciplines, namely computer engineering, data science, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence that are seeing stability and in some cases, a lot of growth in their enrollment as well.

0

153.205 - 164.97 Carrie George

What our department chairs are telling us is that students are very aware of the job market and aware of these forces with AI and the labor market. And they're trying to make choices that are going to best prepare them for life after graduation.

0

165.119 - 186.628 David Brancaccio

Marketplace Tech has that conversation via marketplace.org now. Now, when you order Buffalo Wild Wings boneless wings, do you expect them to actually be chicken wings with the bone taken out? A guy in Illinois sued saying he was deceived when he learned boneless wings can be akin to chicken nuggets. But a judge has now ruled he didn't drum up enough of an argument.

186.648 - 222.155 David Brancaccio

The judge himself used the words drum up better than legally winging it, I suppose. Time to check the marketplace economic pulse views on the economy from a range of perspectives. Tariffs, strict border policy, persistently high interest rates. Maurice Rahming, president of O'Neill Construction Group in Portland, Oregon, sees it all.

222.555 - 235.813 David Brancaccio

He does subcontracting, often electrical, for commercial building projects. Mr. Rahming, welcome back. Thank you for having me, David. All right, just as a baseline here, how's it feeling to you in your line of work? Is it busier? Is it quieter? What are you seeing?

236.193 - 246.887 Maurice Rahming

It's a lot slower. There's a little bit more volatility. Some markets are just really, really slow and not going at all. Some are picking up and then slowing down, but we've definitely seen a slowdown.

247.288 - 251.353 David Brancaccio

So what's your sense of why a little slower from your perspective?

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.