IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2606.15960.html

Chaining Tasks, Redefining Work: A Theory of AI Automation

Author

Listed:
  • Mert Demirer
  • John J. Horton
  • Nicole Immorlica
  • Brendan Lucier
  • Peyman Shahidi

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 the optimal assignment of humans and AI to steps and the firm's resulting job structure, showing that comparative advantage logic can fail with AI chaining. The model implies non-linear productivity gains from AI quality improvements and admits a CES representation at the macro level. Empirical evidence supports the model's key predictions that (1) AI-executed steps co-occur in chains, (2) dispersion of AI-exposed steps lowers AI execution at the job level, and (3) adjacency to AI-executed steps increases the likelihood that a step is AI-executed.

Suggested Citation

  • Mert Demirer & John J. Horton & Nicole Immorlica & Brendan Lucier & Peyman Shahidi, 2026. "Chaining Tasks, Redefining Work: A Theory of AI Automation," Papers 2606.15960, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2606.15960
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.15960
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2606.15960. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.