# Stripe economist finds AI isn’t driving the US productivity boom, and that matters for crypto infrastructure > Source: > Published: 2026-07-28 16:15:39+00:00 Via paymentsdive.com # Stripe economist finds AI isn’t driving the US productivity boom, and that matters for crypto infrastructure A new analysis shows better use of existing capital, not artificial intelligence, is behind America's productivity surge, raising questions about where real efficiency gains will come from. US labor productivity has been growing at roughly 2.5% annualized over the past year, well above the 1.6% average of the prior two decades. But according to a new analysis from Stripe economist Ernie Tedeschi, artificial intelligence has almost nothing to do with it. The culprit behind the productivity surge is far less sexy: companies are simply getting better at using the capital they already have. ## The gap between AI hype and macro reality At the individual task level, AI looks genuinely impressive. Studies have shown a 14% productivity bump for customer service agents using AI tools, and writing tasks getting done 40% faster. But zoom out to the economy-wide view and the picture changes dramatically. Total factor productivity, the metric that captures genuine technological progress rather than just throwing more capital and labor at problems, has been essentially flat. The San Francisco Fed’s estimates show TFP growth hovering near zero, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported just 0.8% growth in 2025. Tedeschi’s analysis went further, examining whether industries adopting AI more aggressively were seeing bigger productivity gains. After adjusting for pre-pandemic trends from 2016 to 2019, the correlation was essentially zero. Industries that went all-in on AI weren’t outperforming those that didn’t. A Markov-switching model, a statistical framework for detecting regime changes in economic data, puts the probability of transitioning to a high-TFP growth regime at less than 20%. ## Why this matters for crypto and fintech This finding is particularly relevant to Stripe itself, which has been incubating Tempo, a payments-oriented Layer-1 blockchain designed around stablecoin transactions. Tempo launched stablecoin advisory efforts in April 2026, targeting transaction fees below a millidollar with stablecoin gas payments. ## What this means for investors The investment implications cut in two directions. First, the AI narrative that has powered massive valuations across tech and crypto may be running ahead of the actual economic impact. Companies spending heavily on AI infrastructure are making a bet that micro-level task improvements will eventually compound into macro-level transformation. Tedeschi’s data suggests that bet hasn’t paid off yet, and the probability of a regime shift remains low. There’s a risk worth flagging, though. The fact that TFP growth remains near zero despite massive AI investment could eventually become a problem for the broader tech narrative. That repricing would likely ripple into crypto markets, particularly tokens tied to AI computing, decentralized AI platforms, and GPU-focused networks. Investors watching the stablecoin infrastructure space, including Stripe’s Tempo and competing payment-focused chains, should pay attention to whether these platforms can demonstrate measurable cost reductions at scale. **Disclosure:** This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our [Editorial Policy](https://cryptobriefing.com/editorial-policy/).