AI Research Brief
AI Research Brief — October 2026
October 29, 2026 · Report · A4
WB-ARB-2026-10Public edition
Executives doubled the productivity gain they credit to AI, to 0.2% a year, and expect three times that. Census puts US adoption at 24.6%. And an experiment shows AI closes most of an education gap, but only while it's there.
- 2.1
- Hours a week executives use AI
- 0.2%
- Productivity gain from AI, per year
- 83%
- See no productivity impact yet
Want a private edition with your data? Get in touch
Sources (5)
- 1.Firm Data on AI (NBER w34836), revised October 2026
- 2.U.S. Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey, national file (cycle 202621)
- 3.Cruces et al., Does Generative AI Narrow Education-Based Productivity Gaps? (NBER w34851), revised October 2026
- 4.Baslandze et al., Artificial Intelligence, Productivity, and the Workforce (NBER w34984)
- 5.Brynjolfsson, Rock & Syverson, The Productivity J-Curve (NBER w25148)