AI is boosting productivity, but labor is barely reaping any benefits

We identified industries that are the most and least exposed to AI (as well as those in between) and compared productivity and earnings growth since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in late 2022.

Employees in highly AI-exposed sectors are seeing faster wage growth than less-exposed sectors. (Construction is the outlier amid the data-center building boom.) But there’s no universal trend linking AI adoption to productivity and paychecks. IT workers have seen their productivity rise by far the most, but their earnings have not risen much more than workers in AI-disrupted finance and professional services.

This disconnect could be explained by AI-related gains disproportionately accruing to profits (and, thus, corporate shareholders). In the meantime, AI-related wage-growth suppression could reverse the strong US retail sales momentum seen earlier this year.