New experts join Google’s AI & Economy team
Google announced on Sep 18, 2026 that it is expanding its AI & Economy Research Program and welcoming world-class economists to help build and lead the work. The program follows the recent launch of AI & Economy ATLAS v1.0 and its interactive open-access site, which was designed to understand how people use Google’s AI tools at work and in daily life; Google says tracking adoption patterns is only the beginning. As AI reshapes jobs, businesses, and everyday lives, the company argues this shift requires a multidisciplinary approach uniting fine-grained data with rigorous economic inquiry.
The program measures and analyzes the technological transition in real time, focusing on core areas including the future of work, productivity and growth, global technology diffusion, and AI’s impact on scientific discovery. Google says executing a research agenda of this scope requires deep collaboration among academia, industry leaders, and policymakers, so it is bringing together external advisors, visiting scholars, and dedicated research program leadership.
Joining as Academic Advisors and Visiting Fellows are Philippe Aghion and Ajay Agrawal. Aghion, the 2025 Nobel Laureate in Economics and Kurt Björklund Chaired Professor at INSEAD and the Collège de France, joins the advisory group alongside Nobel Laureate Michael Spence and Cambridge’s Dame Diane Coyle; his pioneering work on innovation-led growth and creative destruction will be applied to modeling AI’s long-term macroeconomic trajectory. Agrawal, who holds the Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and is Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, joins the Visiting Fellows program and will collaborate closely with David Autor, a current Fellow and head of MIT’s Department of Economics. His work will advance core research on the economics of AI and scientific discovery, AI and robotics, and how AI can expand the frontier of human welfare.
To steer empirical projects and integrate insights across the agenda, Google is introducing two renowned researchers as Directors of its AI & Economy Research Program. The excerpt names Anu Madgavkar, formerly a Partner at the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), who joins Google following a two-decade career leading global research on labor markets, technology adoption, and structural economi... The provided text does not name the second director.