{"id":214575,"date":"2026-02-17T13:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/17\/thousands-of-executives-arent-seeing-ai-productivity-boom-reminding-economists-of-it-era-paradox\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T13:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:50:09","slug":"thousands-of-executives-arent-seeing-ai-productivity-boom-reminding-economists-of-it-era-paradox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/17\/thousands-of-executives-arent-seeing-ai-productivity-boom-reminding-economists-of-it-era-paradox\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of executives aren’t seeing AI productivity boom, reminding economists of IT-era paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of executives aren’t seeing AI productivity boom, reminding economists of IT-era paradox<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/fortune.com\/2026\/02\/17\/ai-productivity-paradox-ceo-study-robert-solow-information-technology-age\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-17 13:32:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1987, economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow made a stark observation about the stalling evolution of the information age: Following the advent of transistors, microprocessors, integrated circuits, and memory chips of the 1960s, economists and companies expected these new technologies to disrupt workplaces and result in a surge of productivity. Instead, productivity growth slowed, dropping from 2.9% from 1948 to 1973, to 1.1% after 1973.<\/p>\n

New-fangled computers were actually, at times, producing too much information, generating agonizingly detailed reports and printing them on reams of paper. What had promised to be a boom to workplace productivity was, for several years, a bust. This unexpected outcome became known as Solow\u2019s productivity paradox, thanks to the economist\u2019s observation of the phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics,\u201d Solow wrote in a New York Times Book Review article in 1987.<\/p>\n

New data on how C-suite executives are\u2014or aren\u2019t\u2014using AI shows history is repeating itself, complicating the similar promises economists and Big Tech founders made about the technology\u2019s impact on the workplace and economy. Despite 374 companies in the S&P 500 mentioning AI in earnings calls\u2014most of which said the technology\u2019s implementation in the firm was entirely positive\u2014according to a Financial Times analysis from September 2024 to 2025, those positive adoptions aren\u2019t being reflected in broader productivity gains.<\/p>\n

A study published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that among 6,000 CEOs, chief financial officers, and other executives from firms who responded to various business outlook surveys in the U.S., UK, Germany, and Australia, the vast majority see little impact from AI on their operations. While about two-thirds of executives reported using AI, that usage amounted to only about 1.5 hours per week, and 25% of respondents reported not using AI in…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of executives aren’t seeing AI productivity boom, reminding economists of IT-era paradox https:\/\/fortune.com\/2026\/02\/17\/ai-productivity-paradox-ceo-study-robert-solow-information-technology-age\/ Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-521488522-e1771352623863.jpg?resize=1200,600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214577,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214575\/revisions\/214577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}