As part of its AI at Work program, Schmidt Sciences has awarded more than $3 million to 19 real-world studies conducted by international labor economists on how AI is transforming work around the world, the organization announced today.
Winners will receive up to $200,000 each to explore how emerging AI technologies are impacting worker productivity, wages, employment, and careers, with the aim of identifying where AI can provide the most value to labor markets and the global economy, and where its impact will be felt most noticeably.
Schmidt Sciences supports both ongoing research and new research commissions. Over the next two years, the winners will conduct randomized controlled trials and similar field studies in a variety of settings, from banks to factories to laboratories to the gig economy.
The 19 researchers leading these efforts were selected from a pool of more than 300 applicants, represent a variety of career levels, from PhD candidates to professors, and come from 16 institutions in eight countries. Their projects reflect this global scope, examining how AI will impact bank loan officers in East Africa, small business employees in Southeast Asia, government workers in Chile, job seekers in Sierra Leone, and American drivers competing with self-driving taxis.
AI at Work partnered with five leading economists to discover, judge, and select the winners. The judging panel included MIT’s David Oeter, Nobel Prize laureates in economics Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, University of Pennsylvania’s Ioana Marinescu, University of Chicago’s John List, MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Laboratory (JPAL), and research institute UNU-WIDER.
In addition to funding, Schmidt Sciences provides award winners with connectivity to its grantee network, feedback on their projects, and access to computing support.
These projects will also inform ongoing work between the Rockefeller Foundation, Schmidt Sciences, and other foundations on scenarios for how AI will impact the labor market. Last October, the Rockefeller Foundation, in collaboration with Schmidt Sciences, brought together economists, AI companies, and civic leaders at Italy’s Bellagio Center to develop scenarios that inform actions governments and businesses can take to maximize the opportunities for AI to benefit the public good.
The award-winning project is led by:
- Yoon Baek, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stern School of Business, New York University
- Johanna Ballop, PhD Candidate, University of Oxford
- Daniel Bjorkegren, Assistant Professor, School of International Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Silvia Castro, INSEAD and Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich Postdoctoral Researcher
- Richard Freund, Senior Development Fellow, MIDE, Adjunct Research Fellow, World Institute for Development Economics, United Nations University
- Paul Gertler, Li Ka Shing Professor of Economics, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
- Luca Henkel, Assistant Professor, Erasmus University Rotterdam
- Mitchell Hoffman, Richard F. Astor Jr. Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara
- Ben Hyman, economist and senior fellow at the California Institute for Policy Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles
- Brian Javarian, Howard and Nancy Marks Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- INSEAD Assistant Professor Kim Hyun-jin
- Tim Köhler, Researcher, University of Cape Town, Researcher, Stellenbosch University
- Johanna Ballop, PhD Candidate, University of Oxford Joseph Levine, PhD Candidate, University of Oxford
- Benjamin Manning, PhD Candidate, MIT Sloan School of Management
- Christina McElheran, Associate Professor, University of Toronto
- Jiarui (Jerry) Qian, University of Virginia doctoral candidate
- Simon Quach, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California
- Jorge Tamayo, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School
- Nety Wu, PhD Candidate, INSEAD
The AI at Work program plans to call for additional proposals in 2026. Click here to learn more about the program.
