What is Generative AI Worth?

Erik Brynjolfsson is one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of technology and artificial intelligence. He is the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI), and Director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. He also is the Ralph Landau Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Professor by Courtesy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Department of Economics, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

One of the most-cited authors on the economics of information, Brynjolfsson was among the first researchers to measure productivity contributions of IT and the complementary role of organizational capital and other intangibles.

Avinash is an Associate Professor at the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also a digital fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. He holds a Ph.D. from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Avinash does research on the Economics of Digitization and teach courses related to Information Technology and AI. He is a co-creator of GDP-B, which is a new measure of welfare and growth in the digital economy.

Avinash’s research has been covered in major media outlets and policy reports worldwide, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the Economist, CNN, BBC, Financial Times, Bloomberg, and NPR, and reports by the US White House, Federal Reserve, Senate, and UK treasury. He has also been invited to present my research at the OECD, European Commission, IMF, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Previously, he was a member of the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee (FESAC), which advises the Directors of the Department of Commerce’s statistical agencies, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Commissioner of the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Sophia Kazinnik is a Research Scientist at Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab (HAI), where she builds generative AI systems to explore how language and behavior shape economic outcomes. Her work turns economic questions into computable experiments, using LLM-powered agents and multi-agent simulations to study financial fragility, policy communication, and market expectations. In some of her recent projects, she has modeled bank runs, simulated FOMC deliberations, and evaluated how today’s AI interprets central bank language.

David is an expert on economic measurement, statistics, and indicators related to the digital economy. His work aims to provide a better evidence base for policy and business. David is also a Research Associate at the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) which has been created to address the challenges of measuring modern economies. He published several papers and reports in the fields of economic measurement and digital economics and previously worked as an Economist at the OECD in Paris and NIESR in London. David received his PhD from the London School of Economics in 2018.