Lazard Inc. Chief Executive Officer Peter Orszag said the U.S. economy has effectively become a leveraged bet on artificial intelligence, pointing to the technology's outsized role in stock market gains and in sustaining consumer spending among wealthier households.
Speaking on the Bloomberg Deals television program on Wednesday, Orszag framed AI and high-income consumers as the primary drivers of current growth in the United States. He argued that those consumers have been beneficiaries of AI-related increases in equity values.
"Like many bets, it may or may not pay off, but it's a good bet to be making," Orszag said.
This week, Lazard advised NextEra Energy Inc. on its $67 billion acquisition of Dominion Energy Inc. Orszag pointed to that transaction as an example of how AI is lifting demand for electricity and prompting utilities to consider larger-scale operations.
At the same time, Orszag warned that the pace and scale of AI-driven change could create economic friction as firms and workers adjust. He framed the potential disruption in terms of the way labor markets absorb shocks, saying that while they handle small shocks that happen quickly or large shocks that happen slowly, AI could represent "a large shock that happens fast."
Executives in banking have increasingly discussed workforce automation in recent days. Standard Chartered Plc Chief Executive Bill Winters said on Tuesday that he is cutting lower-value human capital. Separately, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President John Waldron described his firm's operations last week as a "human assembly line" that is prepared for automation.
The comments from Orszag and banking leaders tie together three threads noted in recent conversations among corporate executives and advisers: the concentration of growth in AI and affluent consumer spending, the influence of AI on asset prices, and the operational and labor implications as firms pursue automation and scale.
Key context and takeaways
- AI and high-income consumers are identified as the main sources of U.S. growth, according to Orszag.
- Lazard's advisory role on the $67 billion NextEra-Dominion transaction is cited as evidence of rising power demand linked to AI.
- Banking executives are publicly discussing workforce automation and related cuts to lower-value roles.