Goldman Sachs: $700B in AI Investment Created... Nothing. (Math Hard.)

Here's the thing about peak optimism: Goldman spent five years making TV rounds explaining how AI would unlock a productivity boom, transform the economy, and print money. The whole Street was betting their bonus pools on it. Then, in a quietly devastating February research note, Goldman's own economists ran the numbers and found that $700 billion deployed in 2025—SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS—contributed essentially zero to U.S. GDP growth. Zero. Nada. The productivity payoff that was supposed to justify all this? Still waiting. As of March, they found no meaningful relationship between AI and economy-wide productivity. Meanwhile, most of that AI spending just got passed through to consumers as higher electricity bills and software subscription hikes. You love to see it.