U.S. Workers Are More Productive Than Ever. A.I. Isnt the Key.

Economists and chief executives are divided over whether artificial intelligence is making American workers more productive yet.Zoom out, though, and a quieter trend is hiding in the data.For years now, “labor productivity” — an economic measure of how much each worker produces — has been climbing at its fastest pace in at least two decades.

Artificial intelligence is merely a fresh ingredient in the gumbo of forces propelling the trend, not the central one, at least for now.Tight labor markets, digitization and remote work are among other parts of the mix.“I never thought I’d see this many years of really high productivity and, by the way, expect it to continue,” Jerome H.

Powell told reporters in March, before he stepped down as Federal Reserve chair.“And we haven’t really started to see the effects of generative A.I.”A potential win-winIn the best of times, productivity gains are a sign that workers are using new tools or updated methods to work more efficiently; smarter, not just harder.

This can offer a win-win to workers, customers and business owners: If firms can produce more in the same or fewer work hours, then presumably they can increase revenue, reinvest in operations and pay workers more, all without sacrificing profitability — or relying on price increases to push profits higher.Henry McVey, an investment chief at KKR, a private equity firm, said he was seeing exactly that across its portfolio — in health care, tech and retail.Restaurant chains are using cloud computing to manage inventory better.

Remote work has helped companies hire from a bigger talent pool.Medical records have gone digital.“I believe the productivity gains began coming out of Covid with the digitization of work, remote work and the implementation of machine learning — and we’re just scratching the surface on A.I.,” Mr.

McVey said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for...