[*Does AI Assistance Enhance or Erode Expertise? Evidence from a Three-Month Field Experiment in Patent Drafting*](https://www.nber.org/papers/w35720)

**Authors:** David Autor, Tanya Rodchenko, Josh Martin, Zanna Iscenko, Scott Strand, David Pearl, and Melissa Ferere.

**Year:** 2026 · **Series:** NBER Working Paper 35720 · **DOI:** [10.3386/w35720](https://doi.org/10.3386/w35720)

**Study:** Pre-registered, three-month randomized controlled trial; 133 practicing patent lawyers at eleven U.S. firms. AI-assisted drafting and subsequent unaided judgment assessed by blinded expert patent attorneys. Funded by Google.

**Findings:** AI access improved drafting quality, with larger gains among junior lawyers. Subsequent unaided judgment improved among senior lawyers. Junior lawyers showed no average gain, with more high and low scores.

**Abstract excerpt**

> Foundational expertise may be a prerequisite for extracting durable skill from AI-assisted practice.

This is another spot where it feels like AI assistance is very similar in kind to web search tools themselves.

HT: [Atoosa Kasirzadeh](https://x.com/dr_atoosa/status/2108038167987151313).

**See also:** Matt Beane (2019), [*Shadow Learning: Building Robotic Surgical Skill When Approved Means Fail*](https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839217751692), *Administrative Science Quarterly*, 64(1), 87–123. [My dissertation discussion](https://danielsgriffin.com/diss/admitting_searching).