Investing in Brain Health

Harris Eyre, Lenny Mendonca and Remington Tonar | 08 October 2026

AI has spread faster than any technology in modern history. Within three years of ChatGPT’s release, generative AI has been adopted by 53% of the world’s population—faster than the PC and the internet—while organizational adoption hit 88% last year. Global corporate investment in AI has more than doubled, with much of that money going into physical infrastructure like data centers and power grids.

Just as humanity developed machines capable of taking on complex cognitive tasks, humans themselves have become less capable of performing them. The Global Brain Capital Index, which measures cognitive health and related skills, suggests that brain capital is declining at a time when trillions of dollars are being spent on AI infrastructure without a clear idea of what those investments should achieve.

Read the full article published for Project Syndicate.

About the Authors

Harris Eyre is Executive Director of the Global Brain Economy Initiative (GBEI), the Harry Z Yan and Weiman Gao Senior Fellow at Rice University, Presidential Senior Fellow at The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), and Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company and the McKinsey Health Institute.

Lenny Mendonca was the former chief economic and business adviser to Governor Gavin Newsom of California and is a Senior Partner Emeritus at McKinsey & Company.

Remington Tonar is Co-founder of Cart.com a pre-IPO stage commerce and logistics unicorn. He serves as an adviser to a variety of organizations and companies from Fortune 500 engineering firm Fluor to the Global Brain Economy Initiative to start-ups across industries.