ARK Invest founder and CEO Cathie Wood says the rapidly falling cost of artificial intelligence inference is fueling a surge in AI usage and revenue, leading to a productivity boom that could push global economic growth toward 7% while also driving down inflation.
"The surprise is going to be how rapid the growth is going to be, and we're seeing it already from the AI companies," Wood said Friday morning on CNBC.
ARK estimates that the cost of AI inference powering models such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok is falling more than 99% per year. Meanwhile, demand for inference tokens surged 25-fold in 2025, a combination Wood said could make intelligence dramatically cheaper and create a broad-based deflationary shock.
In a Sept. 22 investor letter, Wood pointed to Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate rising from $9 billion in December to $65 billion in July, with ARK estimating it could exceed $100 billion by year-end.
Wood's broader economic thesis is informed by the Industrial Revolution. ARK estimates that global real GDP growth averaged about 0.6% annually from 1500 to 1900 before rising to roughly 3% following the Industrial Revolution. Wood expects a similar acceleration from the convergence of AI, robotics, energy storage, and blockchain, with real GDP growth potentially averaging more than 7% over the next three to five years.
"Much more technology is moving much faster," Wood said Friday.
Wood also argues faster productivity growth could help the U.S. economy grow out of its debt burden. She said the combination of technological deflation and higher economic growth could allow the economy to expand rapidly without an increase in inflation.