• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, Yesterday

AI has begun to disrupt the economy, and some believe states can generate additional funds by proposing a tax on artificial intelligence (AI) computing or AI processing, which automates how data is collected, cleaned, and analyzed, as well as how ads are created, surfaced and targeted.

It’s not a new idea -- just an updated way for states or the federal government to generate revenue. Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, developed what The Wall Street Journal referred to as a robot tax nearly a decade ago.

Gates argued that if automation replaces human workers, companies should help offset the economic decline.

The April 2026 jobs report showed that AI increasingly influences the U.S. labor market through a mix of direct job creation, strategic role reshaping, and targeted layoffs in vulnerable sectors.

Overall, U.S. employers added 115,000 jobs in April 2026, exceeding economist expectations of 65,000, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released today.

While AI reportedly has not yet led to widespread aggregate job losses, its footprint is visible in specific industry shifts and hiring patterns such as advertising and marketing.

It is obvious that AI's rapid growth has changed the labor market, so much so that some politicians and tech leaders want to see a compute tax that places a levy on computing power behind AI.

Andrew Yang, who ran for president in 2020 and is co-chair of the Forward Party, has been a proponent of the compute tax idea, but he wants to take the proceeds from the tax and put it toward a universal basic income, according to Wall Street Journal reporter Katie Bindley.

Bindley also called out OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for his comments in 2021. He favored a “version of a compute tax, but more recently he said that he has changed his thinking.”

The anti-tax argument suggests it could stifle innovation. Bindley spoke with a researcher who mentioned that many people use AI for things that society would not want to slow down or make more expensive, such as discovering new drugs, weather forecasting or fraud detection.

Bindley said some people believe the tax is too “blunt” and believe that each issue should be addressed with its own policy or regulation.

Bindley provided this example: if one of the concerns is AI safety or any sort of existential risks that AI might pose, some people believe that regulations should be put in place as opposed to a tax.

When it comes to labor, for example, one economist likes the idea of making the labor market more dynamic to create “portable benefits, job retraining, equipping people with skills that they're going to need for this new era.”

The idea of an AI tax could become risky when thinking about innovation. It also would disrupt President Trump's focus on AI innovation for the U.S., which would invigorate those against his policies.

In March, Trump formed a 13-member technology and science advisory panel. Major business leaders took a seat to guide the direction of AI policy and other related issues. 

Panel members included Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell and Oracle Executive Vice Chair of Oracle Board Safra Catz also were named to the council on Wednesday that could ultimately include 24 people, according to an executive order.