News about productivity

Deutsche Bank Research says superintelligent AI could outperform human experts across nearly every cognitive task by 2030, reshaping business competition and the global economy. Analysts Adrian Cox and Azeem Azhar describe a scenario of recursive self-improvement, in which advanced models run directly on smartphones, tablets and laptops and sharply cut the cost of software development, research, legal work and engineering. AI costs have nearly halved every quarter over the past three years at comparable performance, a roughly thirteenfold annual decline. The analysts warn that physical infrastructure, regulation and organisational resistance could slow adoption, and that Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle are expected to spend nearly $800 billion on capex in 2026, potentially above $1 trillion a year through 2030.

Paysend, a London-based payments technology company, gives AI tools only to its highest-performing employees, often after they have proven what they can do with them. CEO Ben Chisell says AI lets the company deliver about 25% more engineering work with the same-sized team, but warns it can magnify bad habits such as laziness. Many firms are instead rolling AI out companywide: Lloyds Banking Group has issued 40,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses, yet UK government research found that 77% of businesses using AI said revenue had not changed. At CoreView, CEO Simon Azzopardi says work that once took weeks can now take days, and the company is hiring rather than cutting staff. Chisell argues companies should help employees move into new roles rather than replace them once their work is automated.