Google is expanding its AI & Economy Research Program, adding Nobel laureate Philippe Aghion as an Academic Advisor and appointing Anu Madgavkar and Daniel Rock as Directors. The team will study AI's economic effects across productivity, labor markets, technology diffusion, and scientific discovery, building on the program's AI & Economy ATLAS v1.0, which tracks real-time adoption of Google's AI tools.
The expanded group will work from Google's Chief Economist's Office under AI & Economy Lead Zanna Iscenko, alongside Alex Imas, Director of AGI Economics at Google DeepMind. Its stated role is to connect detailed AI usage data with economic research and inform future ATLAS updates, with particular attention to organizational practices, policy frameworks, and training programs that could help AI upskill workers and support broadly shared prosperity.
Confirmed
- Philippe Aghion, a 2025 Nobel Laureate in Economics and professor at INSEAD and Collège de France, joins as Academic Advisor alongside existing advisors Michael Spence and Dame Diane Coyle.
- Ajay Agrawal, Geoffrey Taber Chair at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, joins as Visiting Fellow. He will collaborate with David Autor on the economics of AI and scientific discovery, AI and robotics, and AI's potential to expand human welfare.
- Anu Madgavkar, formerly a Partner at McKinsey Global Institute, joins as Director. She will lead empirical research on global AI diffusion, small-business ecosystems, and the workforce effects of generative AI.
- Daniel Rock, a Wharton professor and AI2050 Early Career Fellow, joins as Director. He will lead research connecting frontier-model telemetry with econometrics to examine enterprise productivity, labor restructuring, and scientific discovery.
- The program's interactive, open-access site at ai.google/economy hosts ATLAS v1.0 data and research publications.
Unknown
- Specific funding or headcount commitments for the expanded program beyond the named appointments.
- When ATLAS v2.0 or subsequent data releases will incorporate the new directors' research agendas.
- Whether the program will issue direct policy recommendations or focus on empirical research for outside policymakers.
- How frontier-model telemetry will be accessed, including whether the data will be aggregated, anonymized, or restricted to program researchers.
- Whether the program has independent replication plans for its economic measurements and attribution methods.
Our take
Google is assembling a high-profile research group to measure how AI affects work, productivity, and innovation. The appointments bring expertise spanning economic growth, technology diffusion, labor markets, and firm-level productivity. That breadth could make ATLAS more useful than a simple adoption dashboard, but the program's credibility will depend on transparent methods, clear limits on what its data can show, and meaningful outside scrutiny. Google has not yet detailed its funding, access rules, or plans for independent replication.
