Canaries in the Gold Mine: Early Productivity Gains from Artificial Intelligence Creating Organization Capital

Tania Babina, Alex X. He and Renhao Jiang

No 35684, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using a new firm-level measure of AI investment based on AI-skilled employment—spanning machine learning through generative and agentic AI—we show that AI investments are associated with productivity growth in recent years, but not over the previous decade. We trace the productivity gains to the accumulation of organization capital that AI helps create: durable firm-specific knowledge acquired through learning-by-doing that enables more efficient production. We build a novel measure of organization capital based on workers’ job descriptions and document that productivity gains are driven by AI-skilled jobs that build organization capital. Overall, our findings suggest that AI investment generates productivity growth by creating organization capital.

JEL-codes: D22 D24 D25 E22 G3 G30 G32 J24 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08
Note: CF EFG LS PR
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