Chaining Tasks, Redefining Work: A Theory of AI Automation

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6.8 / 10 NBER

Authors: Mert Demirer, John J. Horton, Nicole Immorlica, Brendan Lucier, Peyman Shahidi

Published: 2026-02-25 · View on NBER · PDF

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Abstract

Production is a sequence of steps that can be executed (1) manually, (2) augmented with AI, or (3) fully automated within contiguous AI-executed steps called chains. Firms optimally bundle steps into tasks and then jobs, trading off specialization gains against coordination costs. We characterize

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This paper has been relevance-scored (6.8/10). Full analysis is generated for papers scoring ≥ 7.5.