Scott Alexander: OpenAI+Anthropic's $50B revenue implies +0.5pp GDP lift already
ben_j_todd · x · 2026-09-09
Scott Alexander (slatestarcodex) sketches a back-of-envelope argument: OpenAI plus Anthropic revenue is roughly $50B/year and tripling annually. Assuming tech companies capture about 1/3 of the surplus and the rest flows to enterprises, their AI already yields $150B/year in productivity gains—about +0.5pp on the $30T US economy. He cautions annualization and statistical lags muddy the estimate. Ben Todd adds that if trends hold, GDP growth should gradually accelerate (+1%, +3%, +9%): transformative growth comes quickly but not instantly.
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