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Generative AI (GenAI) has become a focal point in debates on productivity and the future of work. Yet systematic firm-level evidence remains scarce, reflecting the technology’s novelty and the speed of its diffusion. Task-based studies document sizeable performance gains in specific activities (Noy and Zhang 2023, Brynjolfsson et al. 2025, Maršál and Perkowski 2025). However, translating micro evidence into estimates of aggregate productivity gains remains challenging (Brynjolfsson et al. 2021, Bergeaud 2024, Acemoglu 2025, OECD 2025).

In this column, we draw on the Bundesbank Online Panel – Firms (BOP-F), a representative survey of the German corporate sector. Using the Q2 2025 wave, covering more than 7,000 firms in manufacturing and services, we document firms’ past, current, and planned GenAI adoption on both the extensive and intensive margins, associated costs, and firms’ perceived effects on key economic outcomes, including productivity, employment by skill group, and wages (Falck and Nagengast 2026).

Two-speed diffusion: Fast take-up, gradual deepening

On the extensive margin, the survey results point to a rapid expansion of GenAI adoption from 2024 to 2026 in the German corporate sector. The share of firms reporting that they use – or expect to use – generative AI increased from 26% in 2024 to 44% in 2025, reaching 56% in 2026 (Figure 1, left panel).

Figure 1 GenAI adoption in German firms

Notes: Firms reported GenAI intensity in intervals (0%; 1–5%; 6–10%; 11–20%; 21–40%; 41–60%; and >60% of working hours). To compute the average intensity, we assign each firm the midpoint of its selected interval (0%, 3%, 8%, 15.5%, 30.5%, 50.5%, and 60% for the open-ended top bin). The lower and upper bounds shown in the figure are computed analogously by assigning the lower and upper endpoints of each interval. For the open-ended top category (>60%), we use 60% as an upper cap. All statistics are computed using firm weights to obtain representative estimates.

A key advantage of our survey is that it goes beyond a binary yes/no adoption measure and directly quantifies usage intensity, defined as the share of total working hours during which employees use generative AI. The right panel of Figure 1 shows that among firms reporting GenAI use throughout 2024–2026 (‘early adopters’), the average share of working time involving GenAI rises from about 7.5% in 2024 to 10.2% in 2025 and is expected to increase to 12.6% in 2026. Over the same period, the average across all GenAI-using firms increases more gradually, from about 7.5% in 2024 to around 8.9% by 2026, because entrants typically start with comparatively low intensity (around 6–7% in their first year of adoption) and scale up only over time. Put differently, much of the growth in effective exposure to GenAI comes from deepening use within incumbent adopters, while compositional change, with new adopters starting small, mechanically dampens the rise in average intensity as diffusion continues.

Less prompt for the buck: Sizeable GenAI spending, diminishing marginal gains

A natural question is how the rapid diffusion documented above affects AI-related expenditures, an aspect on which there is still very little information. To capture this, we asked firms to estimate their total GenAI-related expenditure as a share of annual sales, covering both one-off and recurring outlays, such as external service providers, hardware and software, internal and external personnel costs, training, and licensing and maintenance fees (Figure 2, left panel). Among firms actually using or planning to use the technology, average spending increases from roughly 1.0% of sales in 2024 to 1.2% in 2025 and 1.5% in 2026. For the German economy as a whole, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that AI-related expenditures rise from 0.3% of aggregate sales in 2024 to 0.5% in 2025 and reach 0.8% in 2026. This is economically non-negligible, likely putting GenAI spending in the same ballpark as some ‘classic’ digital investment categories in macro data.

Figure 2 GenAI spending by German firms

Notes: Right panel: The very high-expenditure tail is difficult to characterise because the top category is open-ended (i.e., right-censored at ≥10% of sales). Hence, we disregard this category in the figure.

Spending and use intensity are closely related, but over the observed range, the cost-intensity schedule is concave (Figure 2, right panel). Firms in the lowest cost brackets (including zero-cost users) already report non-trivial GenAI use, consistent with trial adoption based on free tools or low-tier subscriptions. As expenditure rises through the mid-range, intensity increases but at a declining marginal rate, suggesting diminishing returns once easily scalable applications have been implemented and organisational complements become binding (Bresnahan et al. 2002, Brynjolfsson et al. 2021). Early adopters and information/communication firms lie systematically above the aggregate relationship, consistent with stronger complementary capabilities and a task mix that is more amenable to GenAI.

The composition of GenAI spending is striking. For most users, one-off implementation costs – such as external consulting and hardware – account for less than 25% of total expenditure, with only a modest increase expected over time (Figure 3, left panel). One notable exception is larger firms, which tend to report a higher fixed-cost share, consistent with a more setup-heavy implementation model (Figure 3, right panel). Overall, this pattern indicates that GenAI is integrated primarily through an ‘operating expense’ model, such as recurring subscriptions and permanent IT staff. This shift also has implications for measurement and cyclicality: because many AI-related outlays are recorded as intermediate consumption rather than capital (Highfill et al. 2025), investment-based measures may understate technology deepening and mechanically overstate the productivity residual, while a service-flow model can make usage more responsive to cash-flow conditions than sunk IT investment (DeStefano et al. 2025).

Figure 3 Share of fixed costs for GenAI

Great expectations: Productivity up, stronger high-skill demand, rising wages

Two findings stand out in firms’ assessments of GenAI’s economic effects (Figure 4). First, among adopters (and near-term adopters), productivity expectations are decisively positive. The share of (current or prospective) GenAI users expecting labour productivity to increase by at least 2% rises from 46% (2024) to 51% (2025) and 54% (2026); around one-quarter even expect gains of 5% or more, while only about 4–5% foresee productivity losses.
These magnitudes are not economy-wide forecasts, but they echo the macro literature’s generally optimistic view of AI’s growth potential (Bergeaud 2024, Acemoglu 2025, OECD 2025).

Figure 4 Expected effects of GenAI use in German firms

Second, firms’ labour-market expectations are modestly positive overall with net gains in high-skill jobs and a gradual upward drift in wages. For high-skill employment, about two-thirds expect changes within ±1%, but the tails are asymmetric: in 2026, 28% anticipate growth of at least 2%, versus 8% expecting a decline of at least 2%, consistent with GenAI being perceived as complementary to high-skill work. Low-skill employment expectations are close to balanced on average and concentrated on ‘no change’.

Wages are mostly expected to be stable, yet tilt upward over time: the share of firms expecting wage growth of ≥2% rises from 19% in 2024 to 26% in 2026. In Acemoglu’s (2025) task-based framework, this pattern suggests that adopters expect displacement to be more than offset by task complementarities and the expansion of human tasks – an interpretation worth flagging, given exposure-based measures that emphasise sizeable potential impacts in white-collar tasks (Eloundou et al. 2023).

Authors’ note: This column represents the authors’ personal opinions and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Deutsche Bundesbank or the Eurosystem.

References

Acemoglu, D (2025), “The simple macroeconomics of AI”, Economic Policy 40(121): 13–58.

Bencivelli, L, L De Masi, E Falck, A Fernández Cerezo, S Formai, I H Bricio, E Mattevi, and A Nagengast (2026), “Embracing AI in Europe: New evidence from harmonized central bank business surveys”, VoxEU.org, 6 January.

Bergeaud, A (2024), “The past, present and future of European productivity”, paper prepared for ECB Forum on Central Banking.

Bresnahan, T F, E Brynjolfsson. and L M Hitt (2002), “Information technology, workplace organization, and the demand for skilled labor: Firm-level evidence”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(1): 339–76.

Brynjolfsson, E, D Li, and L Raymond (2025), “Generative AI at work”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 140(2): 889–942.

Brynjolfsson, E, D Rock, and C Syverson (2021), “The productivity J-curve: How intangibles complement general purpose technologies”, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 13(1): 333–72.

DeStefano, T, R Kneller, and J Timmis (2025), “Cloud computing and firm growth”, Review of Economics and Statistics 107(6): 1638–51.

Eloundou, T, S Manning, P Mishkin, and D Rock (2023), “GPTs are GPTs: An early look at the labor market impact potential of large language models”, arXiv:2303.10130.

Falck, E, and A Nagengast (2026), “Scaling generative AI: Diminishing marginal returns and firm-level outcomes”, SSRN.

Highfill, T, D Wasshausen, and G Prunchak (2025), “Concepts and challenges of measuring production of artificial intelligence in the US economy”, BEA Working Paper Series WP2025-1.

Maršál, A, and P Perkowski (2025), “Task-based returns to generative AI: Evidence from a central bank”, VoxEU.org, 31 July.

Noy, S, and W Zhang (2023), “The productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence”, VoxEU.org, 7 June.

OECD (2025), “Macroeconomic productivity gains from artificial intelligence in G7 economies”, OECD Artificial Intelligence Papers No. 41.

Irvine, CA – February 6, 2026 – Johnson & Johnson today announced 12-month pilot-phase data from the OMNY-AF study, evaluating the investigational OMNYPULSE Platform for the treatment of symptomatic paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AFib), during the 31st Annual AF Symposium in Boston. Initial results for 12-month outcomes across the 30-patient pilot cohort show investigators achieved 100% acute procedural success with no procedure-associated adverse events, while 56.7% of cases were performed with zero fluoroscopy and 90% of patients achieved primary effectiveness at 12 months.ⁱ

OMNY-AF is a prospective, single-arm, multi-center clinical trial conducted across more than 40 sites in the U.S. and Australia.ⁱ The study pairs the OMNYPULSE Catheter, a 12 mm large-tip focal catheter featuring contact-force sensing and bipolar, biphasic pulse delivery with the TRUPULSE Generator. This integrated design combines precise mapping, controlled energy delivery and live feedback through the PF index on the CARTO 3 System.ⁱⁱ The OMNYPULSE Platform is not currently approved in any region of the world.

“The 12-month data provide encouraging early evidence on the OMNY-AF study with promising safety outcomes – no procedure-related adverse events or MRI-detected cerebral lesions – across eight centers in the pilot phase ⁱ. In my cases during the ongoing OMNY-AF trial, the seamless integration of advanced mapping, ultrasound, and PF Index with contact force were valuable for precise and efficient pulsed field energy delivery,” said Dinesh Sharma, M.D.¹, Section Head of Cardiac Electrophysiology at the Naples Heart Institute, the study presenting author.

Alongside the OMNY-AF data, Johnson & Johnson is highlighting new findings related to the VARIPULSE Platform. Data presented by Andrea Natale, M.D.², and simultaneously published in JACC Clinical Electrophysiology, by Moussa Mansour, M.D.³ examined the incidence of neurovascular events following the workflow enhancements and the introduction of an optimized irrigation flow rate. Notably, the platform sustained a low neurovascular event rate of 0.22% in 6,811 patients after implementation of both workflow enhancements and the updated irrigation rate.ⁱⁱ

Additional VARIPULSE Platform data presented at AF Symposium adds to the growing body of evidence underscoring the platform’s consistent and favorable safety profile across a range of clinical and real-world settings, including:

• VARISURE Safety survey data presented by Christopher Porterfield, M.D.⁴: Early results from this physician survey on 850 procedures indicated low complication rates with a 1.9% rate of primary adverse events, a 0.2% incidence of neurovascular events and no reported cases of coronary spasm or death. Same-day discharge was achieved in 87.9% of patients.ⁱⁱⁱ
• REAL AF registry analysis presented by Mohammad-Ali Jazayeri, M.D.⁵: Results from the REAL AF registry showed excellent acute safety outcomes of the VARIPULSE Catheter, with a low overall acute safety event rate of 0.5% with no neurovascular events, high rates of same-day discharge and no observed differences in safety outcomes across AFib classifications.^iv
• Irrigation Flow Optimization research presented by Fengwei Zou, M.D.⁶: Preclinical data demonstrated parity between the 4 mL/min and 30 mL/min irrigation rates in microbubble generation, hemolysis and lesion depth when using the VARIPULSE Catheter, while confirming that higher irrigation significantly reduced electrode surface heating.^v

“These data reinforce confidence in the consistency of safety outcomes observed across Johnson & Johnson’s electrophysiology portfolio. As a relatively new energy modality, pulse field ablation technologies should be individually evaluated for safety and reproducibility in atrial fibrillation ablation,” said Gregory Michaud, M.D., Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, Electrophysiology, MedTech, Johnson & Johnson. “As pulsed field ablation continues to evolve, rigorous evidence generation and transparent data sharing will be essential to advancing the science and enabling the next wave of innovation with this technology.”

Johnson & Johnson remains committed to evidence-driven innovation that advances patient care and informs clinical decision-making across its electrophysiology portfolio. These efforts are supported by the CARTO 3 System, the world’s leading cardiac mapping system⁷.

About The OMNY-AF Study
The OMNY-AF study is a prospective, single-arm, multi-center study evaluating the clinical safety and effectiveness of the OMNYPULSE Catheter for the treatment of symptomatic paroxysmal AFib. Up to 440 enrolled subjects will undergo an ablation procedure with the OMNYPULSE Platform. The primary safety endpoint in the study is the occurrence of Primary Adverse Events within seven days of the ablation procedure. The primary effectiveness endpoint is freedom from documented (symptomatic and asymptomatic) atrial tachyarrhythmia episodes based on electrocardiographic data and additional failure modes during the effectiveness evaluation period over a 12-month period.

About the VARIPULSE Platform
The VARIPULSE Platform is Johnson & Johnson MedTech’s Pulsed Field ablation system. The fully integrated platform includes the VARIPULSE Catheter, TRUPULSE Generator, and CARTO 3 Mapping System VARIPULSE Software. The Platform is now approved for use in the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific, Canada, and Latin America.

Cardiovascular Solutions from Johnson & Johnson MedTech
Across Johnson & Johnson, we are tackling the world’s most complex and pervasive health challenges. Through a cardiovascular portfolio that provides healthcare professionals with advanced mapping and navigation, miniaturized tech, and precise ablation we are addressing conditions with significant unmet needs such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, stroke, and atrial fibrillation. We are the global leaders in heart recovery, circulatory restoration, and the treatment of heart rhythm disorders, as well as an emerging leader in neurovascular care, committed to taking on two of the leading causes of death worldwide in heart failure and stroke. For more, visit biosensewebster.com.

About Johnson & Johnson
At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more about our MedTech sector’s global scale and deep expertise in surgery, orthopaedics, vision, and cardiovascular solutions at https://thenext.jnjmedtech.com. Follow us at @JNJMedTech and on LinkedIn.

Cautions Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 related to Collaborative Outcomes Registry for Evidence in Ventricular Arrhythmias. The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations of future events. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections of Johnson & Johnson. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: competition, including technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; uncertainty of commercial success for new products; the ability of the company to successfully execute strategic plans; impact of business combinations and divestitures; challenges to patents; changes in behavior and spending patterns or financial distress of purchasers of health care products and services; and global health care reforms and trends toward health care cost containment. A further list and descriptions of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in Johnson & Johnson’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, including in the sections captioned “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” and “Item 1A. Risk Factors,” and in Johnson & Johnson’s subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of these filings are available online at www.sec.gov, www.jnj.com, www.investor.jnj.com or on request from Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information or future events or developments.

© Johnson & Johnson and its affiliates 2026. All rights reserved. US_ELP_THER_411898

¹ Dr. Sharma served as a study investigator and as a consultant for Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Sharma was not compensated for this authorship contribution.
² Dr. Natale served as a study investigator and as a consultant for Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Natale was not compensated for this authorship contribution.
³ Dr. Mansour served as a study investigator and as a consultant for Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Mansour was not compensated for this authorship contribution.
⁴ Dr. Porterfield served as a study investigator and as a consultant for Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Porterfield was not compensated for this authorship contribution.
⁵ Dr. Jazayeri served as a study investigator and as a consultant for Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Jazayeri was not compensated for this authorship contribution.
⁶ Dr. Zou served as a study investigator and as a consultant for Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Zou was not compensated for this authorship contribution.
⁷ J&J MedTech US EP Market Dynamics. Source: DRG Clarivate. Data Latency: 8 weeks. Market Coverage: ~35% US Hospitals.

Footnotes
ⁱ Weisman D, Khanna R, Maccioni S, Rong Y, Al-Azizi KM. Pulsed field ablation using a large-tip focal catheter with 3D mapping integration: early outcomes from the OMNY-AF single-arm pilot study. Presented at: AFib Symposium; February 6, 2026; Boston, MA.
ⁱⁱ Mansour M, Michaud G, Di Biase L, Zei P, Sauer W, Heist K, Nair D, Reddy V, Natale A. Reduced neurovascular events following workflow and irrigation adjustments with a variable loop circular catheter for pulse field ablation. Presented at: AFib Symposium; February 5–7, 2026; Boston, MA.
ⁱⁱⁱ Porterfield C, Munjal J, Hushion M, Varley A, Haas P, Quin EM, Rouse C, Krishnan K, Marrouche N. The variable loop circular catheter safety survey (VARISURE): early results. Presented at: AFib Symposium; February 5-7, 2026; Boston, MA.
^iv Jazayeri M, Khaykin Y, Morales G, Joshi N, Silva J, Hughey A, Steckman D, Osorio J, Zei P, Koplan B, Silverstein J, Ebinger M, Greenberg J, Dominic P, Conti S, Quadros K, Saleem M, Smith M, Gampa A, Porterfield C, Krishnan K. Acute safety profile of variable loop circular catheter pulsed field ablation for paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation in the REAL AF registry. Presented at: AFib Symposium; February 5-7, 2026; Boston, MA.
^v Zou F, Zhang X, Gomez T, Byun E, Chen Q, Marazzato J, Schiavone M, Mohanty S, La Fazia VM, Motta J, Zamora C, Pandey S, Safren L, Safren Y, Grupposo V, Ynoa D, Lin A, Natale A, Guttenplan N, Di Biase L.Irrigation flow optimization during pulsed field ablation: preclinical insights with a variable loop circular catheter (VLCC). Presented at: AFib Symposium; February 5-7, 2026; Boston, MA.
^viA Study of Assessment on Safety and Effectiveness of BWI Pulsed Field Ablation With OMNYPULSE Catheter for the Treatment of Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation (PAF) (OMNY-AF). Clinicaltrials.gov. Accessed January 30, 2026.
^vii Jnjmedtech. OMNYPULSE^TM Bi-Directional Catheter IFU.