"In a note on Saturday, he recalled economist Robert Solow's quip from the 1980s as PCs were transforming the economy: "You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics." The same thing can be said today about AI, Slok wrote, noting that data on employment, productivity and inflation are still not showing signs of the new technology."
""AI is everywhere except in the incoming macroeconomic data," he said. To be sure, investors are not waiting for AI to upend business models, and their fears have laid waste to the stock market recently. As increasingly capable chatbots roll out, shares with exposure to wealth managers, insurance brokerages, tax preparation, accounting services, professional data, legal research, trucking, and logistics have sold off hard."
Macroeconomic indicators show no clear AI-driven gains in employment, productivity, inflation, profit margins, or broad corporate earnings outside the largest tech firms. Investors have nonetheless reacted aggressively, causing steep sell-offs in sectors exposed to automation and AI-enabled chatbots, including wealth management, insurance brokerage, tax preparation, accounting, professional data, legal research, trucking, and logistics. Prominent AI proponents predict large GDP and wealth effects, but current evidence in macro data remains absent. The emergence of AI may follow a J-curve, with delayed measurable impacts. Early competition among large language model developers has driven end-user prices toward zero, altering value capture compared with the PC era.
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