Google DeepMind’s Alex Imas says AI agents may yield only 4% to 5% GDP growth

Alex Imas of Google DeepMind said AI agents may add only 4% to 5% to GDP growth, tempering expectations for a technology that markets have treated as a broad economic accelerant. The estimate frames AI's payoff as real but bounded in conventional output terms, even as Imas argued the technology's larger effect could come through welfare gains and structural economic change that GDP does not capture. The distinction matters for investors and policymakers leaning on headline growth forecasts to justify AI spending, since a mid-single-digit contribution implies a longer, narrower path to returns than the most bullish narratives assume. Watch next for how other economists and institutions revise their AI growth models, and whether corporate AI capex guidance starts to reflect more modest macro assumptions.