The US Federal Reserve named Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) co-founder Marc Andreessen to help lead a task force studying how artificial intelligence and other new technologies could affect productivity and jobs.
Andreessen will serve on the Fed’s Productivity and Jobs task force alongside Charles I. Jones, a Stanford University economics professor currently on leave at Anthropic, and Asha Sharma, Microsoft’s executive vice president and Xbox CEO.
The new task force will assess how general-purpose technologies such as AI will affect employment and productivity to better inform the central bank’s policymaking, the Fed said in a Thursday press release.
The group is one of five task forces launched under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, each responsible for examining important areas of monetary policy conduct. The other task forces will focus on the Fed’s policy communication, balance sheet policy, data quality and inflation frameworks.
Andreessen co-founded Andreessen Horowitz, which has become one of Silicon Valley’s most influential venture capital firms and a major backer of crypto and AI startups.
Andreessen and Warsh’s ties date back to the early 1990s at Stanford University. During a 2025 interview with CNBC, Warsh said that both Andreessen and Palantir’s Peter Thiel “have been friends from my days in college.”
Andreessen publicly supported Warsh’s appointment as Fed chairman. “I’ve known Kevin for 30 years; he combines great insight in economics and finance with keen understanding of technology and business,” he wrote in a Jan. 30 X post following US President Donald Trump’s nomination.
Source: Marc Andreessen
Warsh launches Fed task forces
Warsh revealed the leadership-driven overhaul and the creation of the five new task forces during a press conference on June 17.
“These subjects are timely, consequential, and, in my view, worthy of a fresh look,” said Warsh during the press conference, adding that each of these will be independently led by “some of the very best minds—both inside and outside the economics profession.”
Warsh also said that the central bank will strive to publish policy statements and guidance in shorter, clearer language.
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FOMC divided over AI’s economic impact
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is sharply divided over the economic impact of AI and whether it is an inflationary or disinflationary technology. Some view AI as a long-term disinflationary productivity booster, while others argue that the current spending on AI infrastructure is actively increasing inflation.
During a May 27 speech, Governor Lisa Cook said that she expects AI to further “boost productivity growth, contributing to my expectation that GDP will grow robustly,” but added that it presents the risk of “higher inflation.”
In former Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statements from March 2026, he said that data center spending is “putting pressure on all kinds of goods and services” and is “probably pushing inflation up at the margin.”
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