AI And The Economy: Better Marketing And Sales Good For Consumers But Not Statistics

Marketing and sales people appear likely to become far more productive thanks to artificial intelligence, especially the generative AI typified by ChatGPT. In a surprising paradox, better sales and marketing won’t increase total spending in the economy more than a tiny amount. AI will, however, increase customer satisfaction.

The effect of AI on labor productivity varies with the task. Manipulation of words and numbers are tasks that are most affected by AI. Several economic analyses looked at tasks that could be aided by AI, and then they figured out which occupations most engaged in those tasks. Then they looked at the industries that utilized those occupations and concluded that sales and marketing would be one of the fields most impacted. (This article addresses consumer marketing and sales, not business-to-business activity.)