An Economy of AI Agents
It addresses the economic implications of AI agents for markets and organizations, but is incremental as a survey without new results.
The paper surveys the potential deployment of AI agents capable of autonomous long-term planning and execution across the economy, highlighting open questions for economists regarding their interactions with humans and each other, market impacts, and necessary institutions.
In the coming decade, artificially intelligent agents with the ability to plan and execute complex tasks over long time horizons with little direct oversight from humans may be deployed across the economy. This chapter surveys recent developments and highlights open questions for economists around how AI agents might interact with humans and with each other, shape markets and organizations, and what institutions might be required for well-functioning markets.