Why AI doesn’t make companies more productive

In 1987, Nobel Prize–winning economist Robert Solow wrote, “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” The same could be said about AI today. Gartner projects worldwide AI spending of $2.59 trillion in 2026, a 47% jump over last year, with the US accounting for at least half that amount, according to a wide range of estimates. But in the US, utilization-adjusted total factor productivity grew just 0.07% over the four quarters ending in the first quarter of 2026. That is a near-standstill by historical standards, far below the roughly half-percent annual pace typical of the pre-ChatGPT decade. Some 95% of enterprise generative-AI pilots have produced no measurable effect on the bottom line. A report published this week found that even Meta, one of AI’s loudest boosters, has fallen short in its plan to replace workers with AI. The question of the decade is: Why? One idea: Blame users A working paper posted to SSRN by University of Pittsburgh business professor Mark Ma and colleagues, makes a sweeping claim: The productivity shortfall is caused by employees who resist AI out of fear for their jobs. Over a five-year period, the researchers looked at m…