The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a centre-right think tank founded in 1938 and based in Washington, D.c. It produces research on economics, Foreign Policy, and domestic policy, and is broadly associated with free-market and neoconservative positions within the Republican mainstream.Source: AEI

What did AEI say about AI and jobs?

In early 2026, AEI published a rebuttal to Senator Bernie Sanders's HELP Committee staff report, arguing that AI tools are "skill equalisers" that raise workforce performance at the bottom rather than eliminating jobs. AEI said the report "ignores the data on AI and inequality."Source: AEI

Is AEI neoconservative?

AEI is widely described as neoconservative on Foreign Policy, particularly regarding interventionist positions in the Middle East. MAGA critics in 2026 named AEI as the defining node of the "neocon establishment" they blame for the US military intervention against Iran.Source: event

Background

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a centre-right think tank founded in 1938 and headquartered in Washington, DC. Long a pillar of Republican economic and Foreign Policy thinking, its scholars champion free markets, deregulation, and an interventionist Foreign Policy traditionally associated with neoconservative doctrine.

AEI entered the AI-and-labour debate directly in early 2026, publishing a rebuttal to Bernie Sanders's HELP Committee staff report on AI Job Displacement, arguing the report "ignores the data" and that current AI tools act as "skill equalisers," raising performance at the bottom of the workforce rather than eliminating it. The institute is simultaneously named by MAGA critics as the defining node of the "neocon establishment" they hold responsible for US policy in the Iran conflict, while its scholars have provided independent analysis of the 2026 SAVE Act debate and the DOJ voter-data campaign in the midterms context, defended NASA's institutional role amid the FY2027 Science-budget controversy, and offered commentary on drone procurement and sole-source contracting practices that drew on their longstanding defence-economics work.

AEI now occupies a contested position inside the American right: defending market-optimist conclusions on AI at the same moment MAGA populists blame the think-tank ecosystem it anchors for drawing the United States into a costly Middle East war. Whether AEI's institutional credibility survives the MAGA realignment across Foreign Policy, elections, and social policy is the open question across the Lowdown corpus. Its biosecurity and global-health commentary, including on USAID cuts and their downstream effects, represents a secondary strand of work that intersects with its broader governance and foreign-aid analysis.