AI Premium
2026-06-29 • Computers and Society
Computers and Society
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied how AI usage affects companies, markets, and workers by analyzing a huge dataset of AI token consumption from hundreds of language models. They created an "AI Factor" to measure AI's impact on stock returns and found that companies more connected to intense AI use tend to have higher stock returns, called the AI Premium. This premium is strongest for advanced AI use but not casual use, and it appears across many industries except emerging markets like China. They also found AI benefits jobs involving interaction more than analytical or control tasks, suggesting a shift towards more agent-driven work.
AI FactorAI PremiumToken consumptionStock return comovementAI BetaLong-short strategyOpen-source vs. closed-source modelsEmerging marketsAgentic economyNonroutine interactive work
Authors
Nicola Borri, Yukun Liu, Aleh Tsyvinski
Abstract
Using 380 trillion tokens of realized AI consumption across more than four hundred large language models from the licensed proprietary OpenRouter dataset covering approximately 2 percent of current global monthly AI token consumption, we analyze how AI affects firms, markets, and workers. Leveraging the unprecedented size, scope and granularity data, we construct the AI Factor from growth in tokens, dollars, and users, estimate firm-level AI Betas from stock return comovement, and characterize the AI Premium. First, we build a high-frequency AI factor and decompose it into salient components. Second, we show that firms whose returns covary more positively with the AI factor--high AI beta firms--earn higher subsequent returns, and the AI premium is large and heterogeneous. A value-weighted long-short strategy earns 64.1 basis points per week, and the premium is large for loadings on the intensive, frontier-oriented margin of AI consumption-closed-source models, paying and seasoned users, and long prompts--but not on casual or open-weight use. Third, the premium reaches beyond technology firms into consumer-facing and capital-heavy parts of the economy, but is absent in emerging markets, including China. Fourth, the AI exposure is more positive in nonroutine interactive work and the more negative in analytical, scientific, and operations-control skills--an occupation one standard deviation higher in interaction-and-communication content has 0.36-standard-deviation higher market-implied AI premium. Additionally, we provide early evidence of the rise of the agentic economy.