New Google DeepMind paper says AI is already changing the economy, just not in the way people look for.
Its changing through leaner startups, flatter org charts and slower hiring for some entry-level jobs, but not through mass job losses.
The paper argues that big economic change from AI depends on agents learning to coordinate, not on each model getting smarter.
AI models already match experts on many solo tasks, yet jobs and productivity numbers have barely moved. Most benchmarks test 1 model alone, but firms compete as teams.
They built an economic model that tracks 2 abilities separately: competence on single tasks and coordination between agents. More competence moves wages gradually, but coordination past a tipping point lets a few large AI firms suddenly take over big, standardized markets.
In a quiz of 100 people, pairs matched to cover each other's weak spots beat random pairs by 32%. AI copies share the same weak spots, so a model that beats every person alone can still lose to a well-matched human team.