Google Adds Nobel Laureate to AI and Economy Research Team

Google has expanded its AI & Economy Research Program, appointing new directors and academic advisors to study the real-time economic effects of artificial intelligence. Anu Madgavkar, former partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, and Daniel Rock, an assistant professor from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, will step in as directors. They join existing leaders Alex Imas, who serves as Director of AGI Economics at Google DeepMind, and Zanna Iscenko, the AI & Economy Lead in the Chief Economist's Office.

The initiative is also bringing on high-profile academic talent. Philippe Aghion, a 2025 Nobel Laureate in Economics from INSEAD and the Collège de France, joins as an academic advisor alongside existing advisors Michael Spence and Dame Diane Coyle. Additionally, Ajay Agrawal from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management joins as a visiting fellow, collaborating with MIT's David Autor to research AI's role in scientific discovery and robotics.

This expanded team will build upon Google's recently launched AI & Economy ATLAS v1.0, an interactive, open-access platform designed to track how people use Google's AI tools in their daily work. The researchers will focus on analyzing global technology diffusion, labor market restructuring, enterprise productivity, and the broader macroeconomic trajectory of innovation-led growth.

For industry practitioners, policymakers, and organizational leaders, this academic expansion promises deeper empirical insights into how generative AI upskills workers and alters business ecosystems. By bridging frontier model telemetry with rigorous econometrics, Google aims to provide the data necessary to design effective public policy frameworks and workforce training programs, helping businesses adapt to structural economic shifts.