The National Bureau of Economic Research surveyed executives on the effects of roughly three years of AI adoption at their own companies. The results challenge the dominant narrative: more than nine in ten reported no effect on employment, and 89 percent reported no effect on productivity. This is not a survey of skeptics about AI in general—these are people at firms that have deployed it, reporting on what actually happened at their own organization.
The findings arrive alongside contradictory data from Linear, whose platform telemetry shows AI agents have tripled weekly pull requests at companies using the tool. However, the same data reveals that total product development time has increased, not decreased.
Researchers suggest the disconnect stems from how productivity is measured. AI agents may increase output volume while extending cycle times, or they may shift work from one team to another without reducing overall effort.
The survey adds to ongoing debates about AI’s real-world impact on enterprise productivity. While vendors continue to tout efficiency gains, actual corporate experiences suggest the technology’s benefits remain unevenly distributed.