Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced dramatically in recent years, with impacts that are already reshaping society, business, and individual lives. Yet many of these implications remain poorly understood and unevenly shared.

Focusing on the economic dimension, the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) published in September 2025 a working paper by Erik Brynjolfsson, Anton Korinek, and Ajay K. Agrawal: “A Research Agenda for the Economics of Transformative AI.”

The authors identify nine major “Grand Challenges” raised by transformative AI:

• Economic growth

• Innovation

• Income distribution

• Decision-making power

• Geoeconomics

• Information flows

• Safety risks

• Human well-being

• Transition dynamics

Each challenge is unpacked into research questions, supported by a proposed set of technological and economic indicators to track the pace and direction of change.

The paper’s focus is collective: how AI may transform economic models, institutions, public policy, and social welfare. By design, it does not address the more individual impacts of AI adoption.

Download the PDF here : A Research Agenda for the Economics of Transformative AI | NBER (a subscription or purchase may be required)