Nick Bloom on The Impact of AI on US Productivity

Video & Timestamps

On Thursday, February 19, Nick Bloom joined Markus’ Academy for a conversation. Nick Bloom is the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow of SIEPR, and the Co-Director of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

You can watch all Markus’ Academy webinars on the Markus’ Academy YouTube channel.

Timestamps:

[08:41] A new age of productivity growth?

[19:05] What is the current data on firm AI use?

[24:58] The survey

[29:29] Results on firms’ AI use

[43:39] Employment effects and employee responses

Summary

A summary in four bullets:

• We see an extremely wide range of forecasts for AI’s growth impact—from Dario Amodei (2026), who projects 10–20% annual growth, to Daron Acemoglu (2025), who estimates 0.5% total additional growth over a decade
• Given the uncertainty and the lack of clear historical precedents, managers’ expectations may be our best available data
• In their recent working paper, Bloom and coauthors (2026) leverage existing central bank surveys to ask 6,000 executives about AI
• They document four facts:

1. ~70% of firms use AI
2. ~75% of executives use AI, with an average 1.5 hours per week
3. AI has had little impact on employment and productivity in the last 3 years
4. AI is expected to double productivity growth over the next 3 years

Click here for the full summary