Why the AI productivity gains haven’t arrived - yet

Azeem Azhar's Exponential View

The AI industry is sending mixed signals, with markets turning red while teams report real productivity gains. In this session I explore why we are living in a split reality, where individuals move faster with these tools but the wider economy is ambivalent. We once assumed juniors would get the biggest lift from AI, yet the newer agentic tools seem to reward senior workers who know how to structure problems and judge output.

In this podcast, I look at the evidence behind that shift and explain how these gains collide with the slow grind of organisational processes.

I cover:

(00:00) AI productivity: A split reality

(00:31) Decoding the stock market drop

(02:53) Unpacking three years of AI productivity data

(06:09) Does AI help junior or senior developers more?

(09:54) The surprising group benefitting from AI

(11:45) Why is there a productivity gap?

(13:08) Most companies need a process overhaul

(14:33) Anthropic's alarming discovery

(16:45) So, are we moving quickly enough?

(17:29) The counterintuitive truth about AI productivity

Where to find me:

- Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/

- Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ -

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar

- Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

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Production and research: Chantal Smith, Hannah Petrovic and Marija Gavrilov.

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