A recent report shows that more and more companies are using artificial intelligence, which can drive innovation and boost productivity growth.
The the prospects for the global economy are starting to “brighten”, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Economic Outlook report for May – and part of it has to do with the potential of artificial intelligence to improve productivity growth.
In addition to its “potential to revive the productivity growth trend,” AI can also drive innovation, the OECD report said. However, the organization noted that the estimated impact of AI on productivity is still “subject to significant uncertainty.”
Meanwhile, the percentage of companies adopting AI has “risen rapidly,” the report said, citing one study that found about one-third of companies in the U.S. and European Union were using AI in 2023.
“Most of them are huge companies,” the OECD report said. “There is evidence to suggest that the positive impact of AI on growth could be significant for individual companies, but as yet there is no clear evidence of effects on the economy as a whole.”
The report said the impact of artificial intelligence on the economy will depend on factors such as its broad adoption across businesses and the extent to which the technology is used to enhance work rather than replace it. According to OECD data, artificial intelligence has the greatest potential impact on the productivity of coders and the least potential impact on customer service workers.
In April 2023 the first study of its kind from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that generative artificial intelligence tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT can escalate productivity in the workplace, especially for recent employees. Using data from more than 5,000 customer service agents, NBER found that the AI assistant improved agents’ daily work, including by increasing productivity and improving interactions between agents and customers.
Overall, the OECD projected that global GDP would grow by 3.2% in 2025 and that inflation among OECD countries would rise by 3.4%. The organization also forecast that the unemployment rate in OECD countries in 2025 will be 5.0%.