✨💪 AI, jobs, and productivity: My chat with economist Erik Brynjolfsson

✨💪 AI, jobs, and productivity: My chat with economist Erik Brynjolfsson

June 25, 2026 · 38 min

About this episode

James Pethokoukis discusses the impact of AI on jobs and productivity with economist Erik Brynjolfsson.

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers in America and around the world: Will artificial intelligence displace workers or make them more valuable? Probably plenty of both. But how much in either direction, and how fast will all this change happen? Today on Faster, Please!—The Podcas t, I am joined by Erik Brynjolfsson , one of the world’s top economists studying how AI is reshaping productivity, jobs, and the American economy. Brynjolfsson is the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI , and Director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab . He is also the co-author, along with Andrew McAfee, of Machine, Platform, Crowd , The Second Machine Age , and the classic Race Against the Machine . He is a co-founder of Workhelix , which helps large companies measure, track, and maximize the return of their AI investments. We explore what the next decade of AI could mean for workers, businesses, and the broader economy, and what the relationship between humans and intelligent machines may look like. We discuss why views from Silicon Valley and the East Coast differ so sharply on AI’s impact, why the technology has…

People in this episode

Host: James Pethokoukis

Guest: Erik Brynjolfsson

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, Stanford Digital Economy Lab, Workhelix

Books & works: Machine, Platform, Crowd, The Second Machine Age, Race Against the Machine

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