Scaling Laws Productivity Boom? Labor Shock? Google's Chief Economist on AI
Apr 7, 2026
Fabien Curto Millet, Chief Economist at Google who leads economic research on AI and labor, discusses AI's potential to spark a productivity boom and how organizational adoption lags could slow impact. He surveys early micro evidence of gains, compares AI to past tech waves, and outlines measurement and policy needs in short, lively conversations.
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AI As An Invention Of A Method Of Invention
- Total factor productivity captures the residual from labor and capital and reflects the flow of ideas and technological progress.
- Fabien Curto Millet argues AI is an invention of a method of invention that can accelerate discovery and reverse trends of ideas getting harder to find.
Micro Evidence Is Yielding Macro Productivity Signals
- Early macro signals show promising productivity upticks tied to AI and tech-heavy sectors after the pandemic.
- Fabien points to Austin Goolsbee's remarks and St. Louis Fed sector studies correlating higher AI adoption with faster productivity growth.
Randomized Tests Show Large Task Level Gains
- Rigorous micro studies show large productivity gains in specific tasks like developer tooling and call centers.
- Fabien cites an internal Google study (Paradis et al. 2024) finding ~21% time savings from developer AI features in real enterprise work.