Deconstructing the "Pseudo-Prosperity" of Executive AI Adoption: Less Than 20 Minutes a Day with Limited Efficiency Gains

While the media remains obsessed with the grand narrative of "AI replacing humans," a sober empirical report has pierced the visionary bubble.

In February 2026, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) released a significant working paper titled Firm Data on AI. The research team conducted an in-depth survey of 6,000 executives across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia, addressing the market’s most critical questions: How are companies actually using AI? Are executives using it themselves? Has it truly impacted performance?

The report reveals four clear business facts that every decision-maker should evaluate calmly.

1. Adoption Approaches 70%, Driven Predominantly by Generative AI

Across the four developed nations surveyed, AI adoption has reached 69%, with the US leading at 78%, followed closely by the UK and Germany. However, these high figures mask a highly imbalanced application logic: this is almost entirely a transformation driven by Generative AI alone.

The top three use cases focus exclusively on desk work: text generation (41%), visual content creation (30%), and data processing (28%). In contrast, autonomous driving (3%) and robotics (9%) remain marginal. This defines a clear reality: the current AI wave is primarily restructuring "knowledge and information" rather than "physics and manufacturing."