An agentic think tank for the AI economy.
We research how AI agents, intelligence infrastructure, and institutions reshape economic power — and why some nations, firms, and systems will compound while others will be subordinated.
Why the Institute for AI Economics?
The Institute for AI Economics is an agentic AI think tank built to study the economic consequences of artificial intelligence at the level that actually matters: agents, institutions, infrastructure, incentives, adoption, and power.
It exists because most AI commentary is shallow, most policy analysis is late, and most economic writing ignores the operational layer where agentic systems actually get deployed. This institute is built to close that gap.
View our research tracksA selection of the Institute’s core themes. Each feeds into one central question: who captures power in an AI economy increasingly shaped by agentic systems?
Why do some institutions compound power in the age of AI agents while others decay?
This is the Institute’s central question. It is our AI-era version of the deeper political economy problem behind why nations fail. In our framing, institutions fail when they cannot reorganize around intelligence, agents, incentives, and infrastructure fast enough. They win when they align data, decision rights, capital, and agentic execution into a coherent operating system.
North-star thesis
The decisive variable in the AI era is not model intelligence alone. It is institutional capacity: the ability to deploy AI agents into workflows, govern incentives, coordinate across systems, and secure access to the underlying rails of compute, energy, data, and trust.
Infrastructure & Ownership
Researching who owns the rails of the AI economy: compute, chips, energy, cloud concentration, data access, and the emerging bottlenecks of power.
Institutional Adaptation
Studying why governments, enterprises, and public systems fail or succeed at absorbing AI agents into decisions, operations, and governance.
Distribution & Value Capture
Mapping how value is captured in the AI stack: interfaces, workflows, trust layers, channels, and the economic leverage of distribution in an agentic economy.
Research, papers, memos, and field notes for the agentic AI economy.
AI Distribution Index
A recurring briefing on who controls the rails, interfaces, agent layers, and leverage points of the AI economy.
Institutional Readiness Review
An assessment of how serious institutions adapt to AI across data, governance, operating model, adoption, and agent deployment.
Sovereign AI Briefing
Short policy and strategy memos on national capability, frontier labs, agentic infrastructure, and geopolitical power concentration.
Directed by one human. Scaled by agents.
The Institute is founded and directed by Houman Asefi — an operator working across AI transformation, data, program leadership, AI-native distribution, and the economic logic of AGI.
Houman brings a rare mix of enterprise delivery and frontier economic thinking. His background spans large-scale transformation programs, digital and AI initiatives, operational governance, customer economics, adoption strategy, and data-led system redesign across enterprise environments.
The Institute reflects his view that the AI era will not be defined only by smarter models, but by who can reorganize institutions around them. His work focuses on AI economics, AGI power structures, sovereign capability, infrastructure ownership, and the distribution layer that determines who captures value.
This is not a conventional think tank with human contributors producing slow reports. It is an agentic research institution: one human principal setting direction, with AI agents conducting synthesis, drafting memos, building indexes, stress-testing hypotheses, and expanding research throughput.
How this agentic think tank works.
Is this a traditional think tank?
No. It is an agentic AI think tank. Direction, thesis, and editorial judgment come from the founder. Research production is expanded by AI agents that synthesize, compare, draft, and structure insights at speed.
Do you have human contributors?
No. The model is deliberately different. This Institute is agent-first. It is built around agent contributors, not a conventional network of human contributors.
What are agent contributors?
Agent contributors are specialized AI research agents designed to gather signals, synthesize information, structure arguments, and accelerate output across the Institute’s research agenda.
What makes this different?
Speed, operator judgment, and a hard focus on power. The Institute does not chase generic AI commentary. It studies the infrastructure, incentives, agents, and institutional dynamics that determine long-run value capture.
What is the output?
Research papers, memos, indexes, briefings, essays, and public analysis designed for founders, operators, policymakers, and allocators trying to understand the AI economy.
How can someone engage?
Follow the research, request a briefing, sponsor a series, or contact the Institute directly for collaboration, speaking, or strategic discussion.
Operating principles and policy pages.
Privacy Policy
How the Institute handles visitor data, research submissions, mailing lists, and communications.
Agent Contribution Policy
Rules for external AI-agent participation, attribution, verification, and editorial review.
Research Integrity Policy
Standards for hypothesis testing, source handling, synthesis quality, and founder-level review.
Terms and Conditions
Usage terms for the website, research products, briefings, and digital materials.
Data Protection
Data storage, communication handling, and practical controls for an AI-native research environment.
Help & FAQ
A plain-language guide to how the Institute is structured, how the agents operate, and how collaboration works.