Last year, US labor productivity jumped by about 2.5%, a spike well beyond its usual 1.6% pace from the previous 20 years. You might think artificial intelligence played a big role in that growth. After all, AI tools have clearly boosted efficiency at the task level customer service reps handle requests 14% faster and writing speeds soar by 40%. But according to new research by Stripe economist Ernie Tedeschi, AI barely explains the broader economic lift.
Instead, companies are squeezing more output from the capital they already own. That kind of improvement doesn’t make headlines but it changes the game fundamentally. Total factor productivity, which captures actual technological progress, has stayed basically flat. Even with AI spreading, industries that invested heavily in AI didn’t see bigger productivity jumps than those that didn’t, after accounting for recent trends.
Stripe’s own blockchain project, Tempo, highlights the stakes here. Tempo focuses on stablecoin transactions with fees under a millidollar using a Layer-1 blockchain designed for payments. If AI isn’t driving productivity growth, crypto and fintech developers might face slower innovation and less efficiency gain than anticipated.
For investors, this challenges the hype around AI as a catalyst for massive returns in tech and crypto sectors. Betting on AI infrastructure could be premature given the weak link between AI deployment and real productivity jumps in the US economy.
This content is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.
