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Research

The Right AI Tool for the Job: The Productivity Potential of AI Applications in Canada

Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to revolutionize work and drive productivity gains not seen in years. But these gains aren’t yet showing up in jobs or productivity data. Not all industries and workers will benefit equally from AI adoption due to differences in task compositions.

To assess the potential impact of AI, this analysis links AI application exposure to industry-level productivity outcomes. Our measure of AI exposure builds on the artificial intelligence exposure index developed by Felten and others and extends prior work on AI exposure estimates in Canada and automation-driven productivity forecasting by assessing industry- and application-specific productivity potential.

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Key insights

Artificial intelligence (AI) exposure measures the extent to which AI capabilities can perform the abilities required in a worker’s job. Exposure increases through three main channels: the adoption of AI applications, advances in AI capabilities that enable more work tasks to be performed, and the integration of AI into existing tools and technologies.

Industries in which workers historically have higher exposure to AI show faster labour productivity growth than industries with lower exposure. When organizations match specific AI applications to these tasks, they unlock higher potential productivity gains. As a baseline estimate, economy-wide labour productivity grows annually by 2.32 percentage points when work is increasingly exposed to AI.

At the industry–application level, the highest productivity gains emerge when organizations match specific AI applications to industry needs. Retail trade and educational services see the highest gains across all industry–application combinations.

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Have questions about our work? Do you need access to a report in English or French? Please contact communications@fsc-ccf.ca.