@KobeissiLetter
BREAKING: US Total Factor Productivity (TFP) rose +1.10% in the 12 months ending Q2 2026, the lowest growth rate since Q2 2025. TFP is a key measure of underlying economic productivity, capturing how efficiently labor and capital are used to produce goods and services. This follows +1.61% growth over the 12 months ending Q1 2026. Since ChatGPT's release, total factor productivity has increased +2.45%. By comparison, TFP over the same period following Netscape Navigator's 1994 release, one of the first widely adopted web browsers, grew +7.50%, more than 3x the current AI-era pace. Meanwhile, utilization-adjusted TFP, which removes the impact of changes in how intensively workers and machines are used, fell -0.42% in the 12 months ending Q2 2026, its weakest reading since Q1 2023. This may be a better measure of productivity because it shows whether output is rising from genuine efficiency gains, rather than simply from workers and machines being utilized more. The AI Revolution has yet to translate into a meaningful productivity boom. We are still early.