What will our economic future look like? We don’t know yet how AI will reshape the economy. Will it lead to unprecedented growth or widespread unemployment? Anthropic’s Economics team built a model of how AI might affect jobs, growth, and unemployment in the US. Read about possible economic futures and make your own predictions about AI capabilities.

Based on the technical report Economic Scenarios for Transformative AI (Korinek et al., 2026), this scenario explorer lets you see what the economy might look like as AI gets more capable. In scenarios from business as usual to growth about twice the normal rate, unemployment stays within the historical range and wages remain flat or rise. But in faster-growth scenarios, there are adverse impacts on wages and job prospects for knowledge workers.

As you scroll, you’ll see an overview of how AI affects the economy. Plug in your expectations for AI capability and adoption, and the model shows what the economy in 2030 might look like. The answer depends on task augmentation, automation, productivity gains, and adoption speed.

In August, we surveyed more than 10,000 Americans. The typical respondent’s answers imply outcomes close to the “substantial change” scenario: GDP is 10% higher by 2030, and unemployment rises to around 5%. Around 10% of respondents have views in line with the extreme scenario.