2026-09-20 — views
Google Expands AI and Economy Team with New Experts
Read this because This expansion signals a deeper commitment to rigorous economic analysis of AI, providing critical data for workforce planning and policy development.
Google adds Nobel laureates and new directors to its AI and Economy research program to study global AI adoption and labor market shifts.
New Leadership and Academic Advisors
Google is expanding its AI & Economy Research Program by welcoming world-class economists and academic advisors. The goal is to better track how artificial intelligence impacts jobs, productivity, and economic activity worldwide. This expansion aims to unite fine-grained data with rigorous economic inquiry to help organizations, workers, researchers, and policymakers navigate the complex transition caused by AI reshaping businesses and everyday lives.
New Directors Leading Empirical Research
Two renowned researchers have joined as Directors of Google’s AI & Economy Research Program. Anu Madgavkar, formerly a Partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, brings a two-decade career leading global research on labor markets and technology adoption. She will lead empirical research on global AI diffusion, small business ecosystems, and the workforce impacts of generative AI. Daniel Rock, joining from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is a leading economist on AI and labor. He will lead empirical research that bridges frontier model telemetry with rigorous econometrics to analyze enterprise productivity, labor restructuring, and scientific discovery.
Academic Advisors and Visiting Fellows
The program also welcomes new Academic Advisors and Visiting Fellows to expand scientific capacity. Philippe Aghion, a 2025 Nobel Laureate in Economics and Professor at INSEAD and the Collège de France, joins as an Academic Advisor. He will apply his pioneering work on innovation-led growth and creative destruction to model AI’s long-term macroeconomic trajectory. Ajay Agrawal, Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, joins as a Visiting Fellow. He will collaborate with David Autor, head of MIT’s Department of Economics, to advance research on the economics of AI, scientific discovery, and how AI can expand the frontier of human welfare.
Collaboration and Future Impact
The expanded team, which also includes Alex Imas, Director of AGI Economics at Google DeepMind, and Zanna Iscenko, AI & Economy Lead, will serve as a scientific bridge. They aim to inform future updates to the AI & Economy ATLAS and empirical research. The team will focus on identifying organizational practices, public policy frameworks, and training programs needed to ensure AI upskills workers and drives broadly shared prosperity. The program measures and analyzes the evolution of AI adoption in real time, focusing on the future of work, productivity, global technology diffusion, and AI’s impact on scientific discovery.
Practitioner note
Developers should monitor the publications and data released by the AI & Economy team to understand how AI adoption patterns are shifting in enterprise environments. Tracking these empirical findings can help in designing systems that align with emerging workforce needs and productivity metrics.