NYC’s AI boom will add $320 billion to economy

Lydia Moynihan

Metro

By Lydia Moynihan

New York is going to have an artificial intelligence boom worth $320 billion by 2038 — thanks to home-grown talent.

A new Accenture and Tech:NYC report lifts the lid on why NYC will benefit from the AI economy — with 90% of bosses saying the city’s talent pool is key to success. 

New York already has 40,000 AI professionals in the city and is the second-biggest venue for raising money for artificial intelligence companies. 

The report — which used financial modeling and a survey of 500 C-suiters for its findings — suggests the number of AI professionals will grow significantly in the next three years as 90% of executives in the city try to bring in more talent.

And within 15 years, AI will become so prevalent that two-thirds of New Yorker’s working hours will either be automated or augmented by AI, which, the report says, will add billions to the economy.

The study also emphasizes that the vast majority of New York workers will see their job simplified rather than replaced.

The study suggests that AI will also level the playing field for younger workers and those without connections since employers will be looking for skills rather than pedigree or experience. 

Sources in tech told The Post they’re already seeing AI transform the city.

Unlike other cities like San Francisco that are focused almost exclusively on technology, New York has an opportunity to implement AI in unique ways across multiple sectors.

“NYC has traditional finance and media and advertising and fashion — every sector is focused on AI and how to implement it,” Julie Samuels, president of Tech:NYC.

“That is the NYC story.”

In fact, New York is already home to 35 AI “unicorns” — a name given to a new company that is valued at more than $1 billion. 

And many New York-based AI companies are advanced enough to be widely used by regular workers.

Ramp, worth $7.6 billion, is used by companies like Glossier, Heyday, and Seed to check expenses which simplifies their business costs.

Runway AI, worth $1.5 billion, is used by shows like The Late Show on CBS to generate and edit videos, images, and text — and could start making full-length movies soon.

And Dataminr, valued at $4.1 billion, scours billions of websites, social media, and news sites and filters those data points to bring individuals, media and first responders real-time alerts about what is happening.

“We believe NYC is poised to be the next major tech hub for AI because it has a bustling cultural and social scene where it’s easy to meet people with incredible research labs, and a huge immigrant population of entrepreneurs building companies,” Grace Isford, partner at New York-based venture firm Lux Capital told The Post.

“It’s the best place to recruit candidates and recruit customers.”

The key to attract and retain that new talent is for the city to invest in research and support startups and existing institutions, Samules said.

“You need big companies in the space, startups, academic institutions helping push research forward, and schools teaching these things,” Samuels said.

“It’s not any single piece but all of those things working together that makes the sector in NYC so dynamic.”

New York is also home to AI research labs at Columbia and Cornell — and NYU’s CILVR Lab, short for Computational Intelligence, Learning, Vision, and Robotics, which is run by Facebook parent company’s Meta’s chief scientist Yann LeCunn.

And the state itself is pushing to become an AI hub with Governor Kathy Hochul earlier this year unveiling a plan to invest $400 million in AI research and investments.

The program, dubbed “Empire AI” creates a consortium of seven universities that will invest in computing labs, research and educating students.

“Whoever dominates the AI industry will dominate the next chapter of history and we want New York to win the race for the future,” Gov. Hochul said.