The claim echoes what economists call the Solow Paradox. In 1987, Robert Solow observed that "you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics" — businesses spent billions on PCs, yet productivity growth stayed flat until the mid-1990s, when the gains finally arrived.

The reason is that general-purpose technologies — electricity, the internet, AI — require deep complementary changes before they pay off. A factory that bolted an electric motor onto a steam-era layout gained almost nothing; the payoff came when managers redesigned the floor from scratch.

Erik Brynjolfsson calls this the productivity J-curve: measured output dips first as firms absorb reorganization costs, then compounds once investment matures. The lag isn't evidence the technology is failing; it's evidence the harder adaptation work isn't finished yet.