Artificial intelligence is often praised for making work faster, easier and better. However, at the task level, this is partly true. Recent studies show that AI can help people complete certain tasks much more quickly. However, when economists look at productivity across companies or the economy as a whole, the gains are surprisingly small. This gap is known as the AI productivity paradox.
One reason is that AI helps less experienced workers more than experts. While beginners benefit from the AI's guidance and structure, experienced workers often spend extra time checking and fixing AI output. Also faster individual task, do not always improve overall results.
AI adoption is another limitation. Most firms are still experimenting, and the time savings per worker are relatively small. As a result, AI’s impact has not yet shown up in broader productivity data.
Overall, AI is changing how people work, but real productivity growth will depend on how well organizations adapt their processes around it.
