The Register reported on 6 November that the Bank of England estimated AI had raised UK productivity by 0.5 percent over three years in its latest Monetary Policy Report. The Bank put the additional annual productivity growth since early 2024 at 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points.
The Bank estimates that AI-related activity accounted for just under a fifth of UK GDP growth from the start of 2026. It attributes that contribution chiefly to developing and implementing AI technology, rather than to wider productivity gains among businesses adopting it. Productivity growth in information and communications has improved, but has not exceeded pre-pandemic averages.
A Gartner survey published in October found that 3 percent of organisations had achieved their AI-related targets for productivity and cost reductions, while 38 percent were over budget on AI spending. In research published in February, more than 80 percent of firms reported no discernible change in employment or productivity from AI, according to a study involving nearly 6,000 executives.
Firms in the Bank’s survey anticipate an AI-driven increase of around 0.9 percentage points in yearly productivity growth across the next three years. They expect roughly half the gain to come from faster output growth and half from slower employment growth.
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