Despite the billions being thrown at artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered little in the way of productivity gains for UK businesses, according to the Bank of England. In its latest Monetary Policy Report , the central bank found that AI has increased UK productivity by an estimated 0. 5 percent over the past three years. That works out to just 0. 1 to 0. 2 percentage points of additional annual productivity growth since early 2024, hardly the economic revolution Silicon Valley has been promising. "AI investment appears to be contributing somewhat to current demand strength, but so far there is only evidence of a modest AI-driven rise in UK productivity growth," the Bank said. Even industries supposedly best placed to benefit from the technology have little to boast about. Productivity growth has improved in AI-heavy sectors such as information and communications, but has yet to exceed pre-pandemic averages. That’s not to say AI isn’t doing anything for the British economy. The bank estimates that AI-related activity has accounted for just under a fifth of UK GDP growth since the beginning of 2026, though much of that appears to come from companies developing and deploying the technology rather than businesses becoming more productive by using it. "The contribution to growth from AI to date appears to reflect activity in the upstream development and implementation of AI technologies rather than broader gains from their adoption elsewhere in the economy," the report said. In other words, selling AI is proving rather more lucrative than actually using it,
The bank also cautioned against giving AI too much credit for Britain’s recent productivity improvements. Much of the increase appears to reflect businesses hiring fewer workers while output continues to grow, partly as companies unwind post-pandemic staffing decisions and respond to higher employment costs. And despite predictions that AI will make vast swathes of the workforce redundant, firms responding to the Bank’s Decision Maker Panel survey reported virtually no overall impact on employment so far…