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Adaptation · Labour & consumers

Consumer surplus from generative AI (willingness to accept)

Aggregate annual US consumer surplus from generative-AI chatbots, estimated by Stanford DEL from willingness-to-accept surveys (users × mean WTA to give the tools up for a month, annualised).

Reason through this

The reading

What users say AI is worth to them is growing faster than any part of the industry's revenue. That is the pattern William Nordhaus found for past innovations, where the innovators keep only a sliver, and so far it is holding.

Direction over the last 2 readingseach dot links to its record
us · $116B · 2025-07-31 · estimateus · $172B · 2026-03-31 · estimate
in the rule's windowmoves within ±$10.0B read as stable, and a move counts only if more than half the steps go its way; this window moved +$56.0B and 1 of 1 steps rose; higher reads dispersing
estimate

2 readings drawn from stanford_del.us.genai_consumer_surplus_usd.pt, one of 3 series listed under How it is measured; 4 observations in the evidence.

Source: Stanford Digital Economy Lab. Brynjolfsson, Collis, Eggers, Kazinnik & Nguyen, 'What is Generative AI Worth?' (2026).

The numbers
as ofreadingvaluerecord
2026-03-31us$172Bestimate
2025-07-31us$116Bestimate

Why it matters

Value that users get without paying for it is value no company captures. If what people would need to be paid to give AI up is larger than what every company earns from it, the biggest winner is the user.

What cuts against it

A single survey series with a stated-preference method; WTA estimates run higher than willingness to pay. No high-frequency version exists.

How it is measured
  • series stanford_del.us.genai_consumer_surplus_usd.pt
  • series stanford_del.us.genai_mean_wta_usd_month.pt
  • series hsbc.us.genai_consumer_surplus_usd.pt
  • source HSBC Insights (Global Investment Research) · default tier 5 · HSBC; short quotation
  • source Stanford Digital Economy Lab · default tier 6 · Working paper
  • proxy welfare · cadence annual · valve leak

Two annual waves so far, so the trend is one step; moves under $10B are within survey error. Rising surplus disperses value away from producers to consumers.

Applied to stanford_del.us.genai_consumer_surplus_usd.pt.

Latest readings
  • 2026-03-31 us · $172Bas of 2026-03-31
  • 2025-07-31 us · $116Bas of 2025-07-31
Why this status, and its history

Stanford DEL WTA estimates: $116B (Jul 2025) to $172B (Mar 2026), one step above the $10B dead band; mean WTA $98 to $124.50 per month. Surplus is moving to consumers faster than any layer's revenue grows. Initial seed.

  1. 2026-09-10unmeasured to dispersingconf — → 65 · initial seed (model-drafted)

    Stanford DEL WTA estimates: $116B (Jul 2025) to $172B (Mar 2026), one step above the $10B dead band; mean WTA $98 to $124.50 per month. Surplus is moving to consumers faster than any layer's revenue grows. Initial seed.

    source1
Why this confidence

Rests on 4 observations from HSBC Insights (Global Investment Research), Stanford Digital Economy Lab; best evidence tier 5, grade C; current.

Confidence is independent of status: 90–95 multiple strong independent sources; 70–89 good evidence, some ambiguity; 50–69 mixed or hard to operationalise; 0–49 limited or vague evidence.

Predictions that lean on this