March 24, 2026: Three major research reports dropped today with a combined picture of where AI and work actually stand right now. A landmark NBER working paper of nearly 750 CFOs finds AI had zero measurable employment effect in 2025 — but projects roughly 500,000 job losses this year, concentrated in clerical and administrative roles.

The same paper finds a productivity paradox: executives believe AI is working before the revenue proves it, echoing a pattern economists last saw with the personal computer.

Anthropic's new Economic Index reveals something most organizations are completely missing: experienced AI users have a 10% higher success rate than newcomers — not because of what they're doing, but because of how long they've been doing it. AI fluency compounds like a skill, not a software license.

And a major Gallup survey finds college graduates are more pessimistic about finding a job than at any time since 2013, with software developer postings down 29% and marketing down 27% — but the real explanation goes deeper than AI displacement alone.

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