Return of the Solow-paradox in AI?: AI-adoption and firm productivity

Return of the Solow-paradox in AI?: AI-adoption and firm productivity | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Return of the Solow-paradox in AI?: AI-adoption and firm productivity Arash Hajikhani, Angela Jäger, Torben Schubert, Arho Suominen This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7434983/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 4 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract AI-related technologies have become ubiquitous in many contexts within the business world. However, to date, empirical accounts of the productivity effects of AI adoption are scarce. Using data from Finnish job advertisements posted between 2013 and 2019, we identify job advertisements referring to AI-related skills. Matching this data to productivity data from ORBIS, we then estimate the productivity effects of AI-related activities in our sample. Our results indicate that AI-adoption increases productivity—with three important qualifications. Firstly, effects are only observable for large firms with more than 499 employees. Secondly, there is evidence that early adopters did not experience productivity increases, which could be attributed to the technological immaturity of earlier generations of AI. Thirdly, we find evidence showing a minimum delay of three years between AI adoption and ensuing productivity effects (i.e., the investment delay effect). We argue that our findings related to the impact of technological immaturity and the investment delay effect may help explain the return of the so-called AI-related Solow-paradox: AI is everywhere except in productivity statistics. AI related jobs Artificial Intelligence Job Market Text Mining Firm performance Productivity Full Text Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 07 Oct, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 02 Oct, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 25 Sep, 2025 First submitted to journal 23 Sep, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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