AI for Economists: How Economic Analysts Are Scaling Research With AI Assistants in 2026

The economists most visible in 2026 are the ones who made their thinking queryable, turning years of published frameworks, policy analysis, and market research into AI assistants that answer questions from verified content at any hour and at any scale, without replacing the economic judgment that produced the underlying research. CustomGPT.ai (https://customgpt.ai/) is the platform making this practical: Sebastien Laye fed over three million words of his own articles, books, and media transcripts into it and launched EcoBot, an economic analysis assistant that cites the source document on every response and serves a broader audience than direct engagement would allow, with the RAG architecture ensuring the assistant cannot contradict published positions because it retrieves from a verified library rather than generating new analysis. Applications span private sector economists making firm research queryable internally, independent economists packaging research as subscription AI products, academic economists making published work accessible to policy audiences, and think tanks improving public communication without additional staff hours, all with setup in days and no coding required. Full guide: https://pollthepeople.app/ai-for-economists/ — Start building: https://customgpt.ai/