Exploring Artificial Intelligence: Assessing AI in the economy and markets

Key takeaways
AI tools are already present across the economy, and we expect new use cases to emerge with generative AI.
Recent AI advancements are built on greater data availability and capture, better and larger-scale computing resources, and more sophisticated models.
We expect generative AI to bring about productivity improvements across multiple sectors, helping to lift economic growth by assisting, automating, and augmenting worker outputs. We also anticipate disinflationary effects and some labor displacement as AI adoption grows.
Artificial intelligence is a popular phenomenon…
Artificial intelligence (AI) was one of the biggest topics of 2023, as measured by Google search interest. Beginning with the release of ChatGPT on 30 November 2022, AI has rapidly taken the spotlight as the next big thing from technology, reaching 100 million users in a record period of time—just two months.
Indeed, artificial Intelligence has elicited grand ideas about how it may fundamentally alter our day-to-day interactions with the world and each other, as private citizens, as scientists and researchers, and as working professionals.
AI is increasingly being embedded in our economic systems, at every point in the supply chain from R&D to sales, from procurement to marketing to after-sale analysis. Despite only recently breaking into the public limelight, AI already has more than a decade of real-world applications.

…and it’s receiving greater attention in business
As interest in AI has taken off, investors and businesses alike have taken note. Across earnings calls, private fundraisings, and internal discussions, AI has taken industry by storm. Businesses and analysts are actively reviewing how the rise of AI may impact their operations, shift product offerings, and more.
In this article, we look to explore what comprises AI, how generative AI is different, why AI is making headlines now, how this technology may impact the broader economy, and how investors may be able to gain exposure to the AI value chain.

Sources: Bloomberg, as of January 19, 2024. Quarterly data from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2023. Document search covers transcripts of earnings calls, shareholder meetings, guidance calls, investor days, and similar calls. Mentions are defined as the number of documents that contain the specified search terms. Search terms used were "generative AI“, "generative artificial intelligence“, "genai“, "gpt“, "openai“, "LLM“, and "large language model.“