Austan Goolsbee warns poor productivity readings could shift AI narrative

Austan Goolsbee, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, is sounding the alarm on a disconnect that could matter a lot more than the latest quarterly earnings from your favorite AI chipmaker. Recent productivity readings have come in weak, and if that trend sticks, Goolsbee says the entire AI-driven growth narrative could need a rewrite. The productivity paradox, AI edition For a while, the data was cooperating with the AI bulls. US productivity growth since late 2022 had been running hot, often 75 basis points to a full percentage point above the trajectory that prevailed before COVID. That was a meaningful acceleration, and it gave credibility to the idea that generative AI tools and related technologies were starting to pull their weight in the real economy. Goolsbee himself acknowledged this trend in multiple speeches dating back to at least February 2025. He wasn’t dismissing the potential of AI. He was, in fact, among the more nuanced voices at the Fed when it came to parsing whether those gains were structural or just noise. But recent readings have flipped the script. Productivity numbers have deteriorated, and Goolsbee is now warning that a persistent dec...