# Alex Imas

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> Updated: 2026-10-30
> Fact-checked: 2026-10-30
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**Alex Imas** is an economist who has been Director of AGI Economics at [Google DeepMind](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/google_deepmind) since May 2026, where he leads a research group on how [artificial general intelligence](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/artificial_general_intelligence) could change the economy.[1][2] He is also the Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Professor of Behavioral Science, Economics and Applied AI at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a post from which he is on leave as of October 2026.[3][8] Before moving into the economics of AI, Imas was known mainly for work in behavioral economics on risk-taking, belief updating, mental accounting and discrimination, and in 2025 he co-wrote *The Winner's Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies, Then and Now* with Nobel laureate Richard Thaler.[3][5]

## Early life and education

According to his Chicago Booth faculty biography, Imas was born in Bender, Moldova.[3] He earned a B.A. in economics with honors from Northwestern University in 2007, then an M.A. (2010) and a Ph.D. (2014) in economics from the University of California, San Diego.[4] Before graduate school he helped found a startup and co-authored several patents as part of its intellectual-property strategy;[3] he is a named co-inventor, for example, on US Patent 7,594,122, granted in September 2009, an EEG-based method for confirming whether a test subject is a specific individual.[6] His graduate work was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2010-2013).[4]

## Academic career

Imas was a post-doctoral fellow in Social and Decision Sciences at [Carnegie Mellon University](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/cmu) (2013-2014), completing his Ph.D. in 2014, and then joined that department's faculty. He moved to Chicago Booth in 2020 and rose to full professor in 2023.[4]

| Years | Position | Institution |
|---|---|---|
| 2013-2014 | Post-doctoral fellow, Social and Decision Sciences | Carnegie Mellon University |
| 2014-2018 | Assistant Professor of Social and Decision Sciences | Carnegie Mellon University |
| 2017-2018 | Visiting Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science | Chicago Booth |
| 2018-2020 | William S. Dietrich II Assistant Professor in Behavioral Economics | Carnegie Mellon University |
| 2020-2022 | Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics | Chicago Booth |
| 2022-2023 | Associate Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics | Chicago Booth |
| 2023-2025 | Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics | Chicago Booth |
| 2025- | Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Professor of Behavioral Science, Economics and Applied AI | Chicago Booth (on leave as of October 2026[8]) |
| 2026- | Director of AGI Economics | Google DeepMind |

Source: Imas's CV, dated September 2026.[4]

At Booth he has taught Negotiations and Behavioral Economics, and at Carnegie Mellon he taught Behavioral Economics and Human Judgment and Decision Making.[3] He is a Vasiliou Faculty Scholar, a faculty affiliate of Booth's Center for Applied AI, a co-director (since 2024) of the Becker Friedman Institute's Program in Behavioral Economics Research, an NBER Faculty Research Associate, and a CESifo Research Network Fellow. He is an associate editor of the *Journal of the European Economic Association* and sits on the editorial board of *Psychological Science*.[3][4]

## Research in behavioral economics

Booth describes his research as behavioral economics "with a focus on cognition and mental representation in dynamic decision-making," covering choice under uncertainty, applied AI, discrimination and how people learn from information, using lab experiments, field experiments, observational data and theory.[3] His work has appeared in the *American Economic Review*, the *Quarterly Journal of Economics*, the *Journal of Finance*, *PNAS* and *Management Science*, among other journals.[3] Selected papers listed on his faculty page include:[3][4]

| Year | Paper | Co-authors | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | "The Realization Effect: Risk-Taking After Realized Versus Paper Losses" | (sole author) | *American Economic Review* |
| 2019 | "The Dynamics of Discrimination: Theory and Evidence" (lead article) | J. Aislinn Bohren, Michael Rosenberg | *American Economic Review* |
| 2021 | "Ownership, Learning, and Beliefs" | Samuel Hartzmark, Samuel Hirshman | *Quarterly Journal of Economics* |
| 2023 | "Selling Fast and Buying Slow: Heuristics and Trading Performance of Institutional Investors" (lead article) | Klakow Akepanidtaworn, Rick Di Mascio, Lawrence Schmidt | *Journal of Finance* |
| 2023 | "Superiority-Seeking and the Preference for Exclusion" | Kristof Madarasz | *Review of Economic Studies* |
| 2024 | "Dynamic Inconsistency in Risky Choice: Evidence from the Lab and Field" | Rawley Heimer, Zwetelina Iliewa, Martin Weber | *American Economic Review* |

## Research on AI

Imas's AI-related work predates his move to Google DeepMind. With Leonardo Bursztyn, Rafael Jimenez-Duran, Aaron Leonard and Chris Roth he studied parents' demand for AI learning tools for teenagers; in incentivized experiments, social forces raised parents' willingness to pay for AI by more than 60%, while information about possible harms of unstructured AI use raised support for banning AI in schools without changing individual demand. The paper was issued as an NBER working paper in November 2025 and is listed on his CV as published in *PNAS* in 2026.[7][4] Other AI papers on his CV and website include a CHI 2026 study of social desirability bias in self-reported AI use among students, an evaluation of AI-text detectors including Pangram, OriginalityAI, [GPTZero](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/gptzero) and RoBERTa, an experimental study of negotiations delegated to AI agents, and experiments on why people value AI-generated art less than human-made art.[4][8]

## Google DeepMind

On 8 May 2026 Imas announced on X that he was starting that week at Google DeepMind as Director of AGI Economics on [Shane Legg](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/shane_legg)'s team. He wrote that his team would study "how frontier AI could reshape the economy: what happens to work and labor, how wealth and power are distributed, how institutions adapt, how AI agents shape markets, and what kinds of models can help us reason clearly about futures that may look very different from the past."[1] His website describes the group as the AGI Economics Lab at Google DeepMind, doing "theoretical and empirical research on how advanced AI reshapes markets, work, scientific discovery, and economic growth."[9]

Work he has co-authored since joining includes:

| Date | Work | Co-authors | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Jul 2026 | "Google's AI & Economy ATLAS v1.0: Mapping Gemini Usage in the Economy" (arXiv) | Zanna Iscenko, Scott Strand and others | Maps 15 million de-identified interactions with the [Gemini](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/gemini) app, Google AI Mode and the Gemini API to occupations, tasks, countries and languages.[10] |
| 15 Sep 2026 | "AI in Science: Early Insights" (arXiv) | Mihai Codreanu, Juan Mateos-Garcia and others | Combines 15 million Gemini interactions, an inventory of specialized scientific AI models and a survey of scientists.[11] |
| 16 Sep 2026 | "Economic policy for AGI" (DeepMind Institute essay) | Julian Jacobs | Rates eleven household-facing policies and matches three "least-regret" responses (expanded unemployment insurance and related measures, a negative income tax, and a universal basic capital backstop) to three disruption scenarios.[12][2] |
| 29 Oct 2026 | "The Economics of Intelligence" (DeepMind Institute essay) with the working paper "Organizing Intelligence" | Andrew Koh, Shane Legg | Models AI's economic impact at the level of competing organizations.[13][14] |

"Economic policy for AGI" was one of the first essays published on the DeepMind Institute, the essay platform Google DeepMind launched on 16 September 2026 with Legg, [Demis Hassabis](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/demis_hassabis) and James Manyika as directors.[2]

### The Economics of Intelligence

Imas announced *[The Economics of Intelligence](https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/the_economics_of_intelligence)* on 29 October 2026 as "the first in a series of projects from our group on how AGI will change the economy."[15] The essay and the companion paper argue that the solo AI agent is the wrong unit of economic analysis and separate two capabilities: competence on individual tasks, which raises productivity levels, and coordination among agents, which governs how productivity scales with firm size. They describe four capability regimes (minimal AGI, supercompetent AI, supercooperative AI and artificial superintelligence) and argue that sufficiently strong AI coordination could break the "Coasean ceiling" on firm size.[13][14] In his announcement Imas summarized two takeaways: that agentic coordination should be tracked more closely, and that "the impact of AI will likely show up in wages before market structure or employment."[15]

## Books and public writing

*The Winner's Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies, Then and Now*, written with Richard Thaler, was published by Simon & Schuster on 21 October 2025.[5] It revisits the "Anomalies" columns Thaler began writing more than three decades earlier: each chapter opens with an original column and then reviews how the finding has held up and how the field has developed since.[5] *Publishers Weekly* described the book as a revision and update of a book Thaler published in 1992, with additional material.[16]

Imas writes essays on the economics of AI and technological change in a Substack newsletter called *Ghosts of Electricity*.[17][8] On 4 June 2026 he appeared with Phil Trammell on the Dwarkesh Podcast in an episode titled "What remains scarce after AGI?", where he discussed what he called the "relational sector," goods and services "where the fact that a human was in the loop is part of the value of that product," and argued that better data on consumers' willingness to pay for human involvement is needed.[18]

## Honors

Honors listed by Booth and on his CV include an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2023), the *Review of Financial Studies* Rising Scholar Award, the New Investigator Award of the Behavioral Science and Policy Association, the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, the Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.[3][4]

## References

1. Alex Imas (@alexolegimas), post on X announcing his start at Google DeepMind, 8 May 2026. https://x.com/alexolegimas/status/2052778908882174302
2. Ana Maria Constantin, "Google DeepMind launches the DeepMind Institute to debate AGI," The Next Web, 16 September 2026. https://thenextweb.com/news/deepmind-institute-legg-hassabis-agi-essays
3. "Alex Imas," Faculty Directory, University of Chicago Booth School of Business (accessed 30 October 2026). https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/directory/i/alex-imas
4. Alex Imas, curriculum vitae, September 2026. https://www.aleximas.com/s/CV-10.pdf?v=20260926
5. "The Winner's Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies, Then and Now," Simon & Schuster (publisher page, accessed 30 October 2026). https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Winners-Curse/Richard-H-Thaler/9781982165116
6. US Patent 7,594,122 B2, "Method of determining whether a test subject is a specific individual," inventors Michael Milgramm and Alex Imas, granted 22 September 2009 (Google Patents). https://patents.google.com/patent/US7594122B2/en
7. Leonardo Bursztyn, Alex Imas, Rafael Jimenez-Duran, Aaron Leonard and Chris Roth, "Social Dynamics of AI Adoption," NBER Working Paper 34488, November 2025. https://www.nber.org/papers/w34488
8. Alex Imas, personal website (accessed 30 October 2026). https://www.aleximas.com
9. "AGI Economics Lab @GoogleDeepMind," aleximas.com (accessed 30 October 2026). https://www.aleximas.com/agi-economics-lab
10. Zanna Iscenko, Scott Strand, et al., "Google's AI & Economy ATLAS v1.0: Mapping Gemini Usage in the Economy," arXiv:2608.00038, 22 July 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.00038
11. Mihai Codreanu, Alex Imas, Juan Mateos-Garcia, et al., "AI in Science: Early Insights," arXiv:2609.28504, 15 September 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.28504
12. Julian Jacobs and Alex Imas, "Economic policy for AGI," DeepMind Institute, 16 September 2026. https://institute.deepmind.com/essays/economic-policy-for-agi/
13. Alex Imas, Andrew Koh and Shane Legg, "The Economics of Intelligence: How and when does AGI lead to economic transformation?," DeepMind Institute, 29 October 2026. https://institute.deepmind.com/essays/the-economics-of-intelligence/
14. Alex Imas, Andrew Koh and Shane Legg, "Organizing Intelligence," Google DeepMind working paper, 29 October 2026. https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-media/papers/organizing-intelligence.pdf
15. Alex Imas (@alexolegimas), post on X announcing The Economics of Intelligence, 29 October 2026. https://x.com/alexolegimas/status/2115822019518370172
16. "The Winners Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies, Then and Now," review, Publishers Weekly, reviewed 7 October 2025. https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-9821-6511-6
17. "About," Ghosts of Electricity (Substack, accessed 30 October 2026). https://aleximas.substack.com/about
18. Dwarkesh Patel, "Alex Imas and Phil Trammell: What remains scarce after AGI?," Dwarkesh Podcast, 4 June 2026. https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/alex-imas-phil-trammell