Publications

At the IDE, research and data-based evidence underlie all that we do. Explore the cutting-edge academic papers, featured in leading publications around the globe.

Publication Types

Books Priority Technologies: Ensuring U.S. Security and Shared Prosperity

Apr 2026

William D. Oliver, et al.

Edited by Elisabeth B. Reynolds

Working Papers Economics of Human and AI Collaboration: When is Partial Automation More Attractive than Full Automation?

Mar 2026

Wensu Li | Postdoctoral Associate

Neil Thompson | Research Scientist, MIT Sloan School of Management and CSAIL

Martin Fleming | Research Scientist, IDE

This paper develops a unified framework for evaluating the optimal degree of task automation. Moving beyond binary automate-or-not assessments, we model automation intensity as a continuous choice in which firms minimize costs by selecting an AI accuracy level, from no automation through partial human-AI collaboration to full automation.

Working Papers SAGE: Self-play Adversarial Games Enhance Large Language Model Reasoning Capabilities

Neil Thompson | Research Scientist, MIT Sloan School of Management and CSAIL

Jayson Lynch | Research Scientist, CSAIL

Hans Gundlach | Research Assistant, CSAIL

Saraswathy Amjith

Michael X. Wang

This paper introduces SAGE (Self-play Adversarial Games for Enhancement), a framework for improving LLM reasoning capabilities through adversarial self-play without human-curated data.

IDE Special Reports 2025 MIT IDE Annual Report

Mar 2026

Research Papers Beyond Search: LLM Adoption and Web Traffic Concentration

Feb 2026

Alessandro Acquisti | T. Wilson (1953) Professor in Management and Professor of Information Technology, MIT Sloan

Samira Gholami | Stanford University – Department of Economics

Cristiana Firullo | Cornell University – Cornell University, College of Computing and Information Science (CIS), Department of Information Science, Students

Cristobal Cheyre | Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

This paper examines whether LLM adoption displaces traditional web navigation or instead restructures how users discover and consume information.

Working Papers The Rise of AI Search: Implications for Information Markets and Human Judgement at Scale

Sinan Aral | Director, MIT IDE; Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management

Rui Zuo | Postdoctoral Associate

Haiwen Li

Researchers found a rapid global expansion of AI search and key trends that reflect important, previously hidden, policy decisions by AI companies that impact human exposure to AI search worldwide.

Research Briefs Why “Meek,” Low-Budget Models Could Soon Match High-Budget Performance

Jan 2026

Neil Thompson | Research Scientist, MIT Sloan School of Management and CSAIL

Hans Gundlach | Research Assistant, CSAIL

Jayson Lynch | Research Scientist, CSAIL

Working Papers Chaining Tasks, Redefining Work: A Theory of AI Automation

Jan 2026

John Horton | Associate Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management

Peyman Shahidi | Ph.D. Candidate

Brendan Lucier | Microsoft Research

Nicole Immorlica | Yale University, Microsoft Research

Mert Demirer | MIT

This paper develops a model that predicts 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.