John Burn-Murdoch, chief data reporter at the Financial Times, says many people cite a productivity chart as proof that AI is showing up in the data, though the reporter made that chart to rebut exactly that claim.

(November 1)

Concept illustration: at lower left, a hand in a dark sleeve grips a smartphone with a sign lettered US rising behind it, a large black opening quotation mark to its left and a closing one to its right; a cream bar runs in from the left edge to the phone, where a red band starts as a point and widens as it climbs to the upper right, with a sign lettered PRODUCTIVITY above its middle and, at its top end, an open laptop with a speech bubble on its screen beside a sign lettered AI. At lower right, seven people are gathered, two of them raising thin sticks topped with short slanted red bars. Printed on the image: Trend predates AI, US only, Burn-Murdoch's view.

In the debate over returns on AI investment, this chart can't stand alone as evidence, which is Burn-Murdoch's personal judgment. Burn-Murdoch's reason is that the productivity trend in the chart predates AI and appears only in the US (John Burn-Murdoch, 2026-11-01). The figures in the chart attached to the post haven't been checked. How we checked →

Source and checks

This item ran in the brief of Nov 6, 2026, alongside 17 other items. How we checked it, the quote checks and what was still missing that day are on that issue's How we checked page.

Cite this item

SecondSource (2026). "John Burn-Murdoch, chief data reporter at the Financial Times, says many people cite a productivity chart as proof that AI is showing up in the data, though the reporter made that chart to rebut exactly that claim.." https://secondsource.io/en/expert/2026-11-06-2/. Accessed access date.