AI economy statement urges action on jobs, guardrails and institutions

The statement was brought together by Susan Young, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ajay Agrawal, Anton Korinek and Tom Cunningham, with signatories from economics, AI research, technology and policy.

A new statement on AI’s economic impact calls for greater investment in understanding jobs, productivity, guardrails and institutions.

“We Must Act Now: A Statement on AI’s Transformation of the Economy” was released on July 13, 2026, with signatories including economists, AI researchers, technologists and policymakers from universities, AI companies, research organizations and public policy institutions.

Susan Young, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Stanford Digital Economy Lab, announced the statement on LinkedIn and said it called for “greater investment in understanding the economic impacts of increasingly capable AI and preparing for the profound changes it may bring.”

Young said she helped bring the effort together alongside Erik Brynjolfsson of Stanford University, Ajay Agrawal of the University of Toronto, Anton Korinek of the University of Virginia and Anthropic, and Tom Cunningham of METR.

The statement lands as universities, employers and training providers are already revising how they prepare people for AI-enabled workplaces. If AI systems become substantially more capable over the next decade, curriculum design, adult reskilling, assessment and workforce planning will become policy questions rather than optional innovation projects.

Statement warns AI could shift the economy quickly

The statement opens with a direct warning: “AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years.”

It says increasingly capable AI could drive an economic transformation “larger than the Industrial Revolution,” but over a much shorter period of time. The statement identifies two broad possibilities: risks including large-scale job displacement, and opportunities including major gains in living standards.

The signatories argue that economists, policymakers and technology leaders need to act before the effects are fully visible in labor markets. The statement calls for work to understand “the economics of transformative AI” and to build “the incentives, guardrails, and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society.”

The statement stops short of a policy blueprint. Instead, it urges economists, policymakers and technology leaders to start the research and institutional work now, before more capable AI systems are embedded across workplaces, public services and education.

For universities and workforce organizations, the immediate question is not only which AI tools students and workers use, but which skills remain valuable if more tasks can be automated, accelerated or reorganized by AI systems.

Signatories span economics, AI and public policy

The signatory list brings together economists, AI researchers and technology figures from Stanford University, the University of Toronto, MIT, New York University, the University of Cambridge, Columbia University, Harvard University, the London School of Economics, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Google DeepMind, Microsoft Research and other organizations.

The statement was brought together by Susan Young, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ajay Agrawal, Anton Korinek and Tom Cunningham. Other signatories include Daron Acemoglu of MIT, Diane Coyle of the University of Cambridge, David Autor of MIT, Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, Jason Furman of Harvard University, Christopher A. Pissarides of the London School of Economics, Paul Milgrom of Stanford University, George Akerlof of Georgetown University and the University of California, Berkeley, Ben Bernanke of the Brookings Institution, Gita Gopinath of Harvard University and Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University.

AI and technology signatories include Yoshua Bengio of Université de Montréal, LawZero and Mila, Yann LeCun of Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, Jeff Dean of Google, Wojciech Zaremba of OpenAI Foundation, Jack Clark of Anthropic, Ronnie Chatterji of OpenAI, Dean Ball of OpenAI, Noam Brown of OpenAI, Boaz Barak of Harvard University and OpenAI, John Schulman of Thinking Machines, and Sholto Douglas of Anthropic.

Several names in the statement are marked as Nobel laureates, including Michael Spence, Daron Acemoglu, Joseph Stiglitz, Simon Johnson, Christopher A. Pissarides, Paul Milgrom, George Akerlof, Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt, Oliver D. Hart, Bengt Holmstrom, Alvin Roth, Michael Kremer, Roger B. Myerson, Paul Krugman and Ben Bernanke.

Skills policy moves into the AI economy debate

The statement places jobs, living standards and public institutions at the center of the AI economy debate.

It says AI may become “radically more powerful” over the next 10 years and could bring risks including “large-scale job displacement,” alongside opportunities such as major gains in living standards.

The signatories call for economists, policymakers and technology leaders to invest in understanding the economics of transformative AI. They also call for incentives, guardrails and institutions that can steer AI toward complementing humans and benefiting society.

The statement does not set out specific proposals for schools, colleges, universities or workforce training providers. Its focus is broader: economic research, labor market preparation, governance and institutional design.

Young framed the release as a collective effort, writing: “It was a privilege to help bring this effort together alongside Erik Brynjolfsson, Ajay Agrawal, Anton Korinek, and Tom Cunningham. I’m grateful to everyone who added their voice.”

“We Must Act Now: A Statement on AI’s Transformation of the Economy” is now public, with signatories from academia, AI research, technology, policy organizations and industry.