[8] At the age of 23, he taught courses on Building Expert Systems and on Applications of Artificial Intelligence at Harvard Extension School with Tod Loofbourrow.

[15] At Stanford, Brynjolfsson teaches a graduate course on "The AI Awakening: Implications for the Economy and Society"[16] which has included guest lectures by Mira Murati, Jeff Dean, Eric Schmidt, Alexandr Wang, Mustafa Suleyman and others.

Along with Tom Mitchell, Brynjolfsson co-chaired two committees for the National Academies of Sciences, one on "Automation and the US Workforce"[19] in 2017 and one on "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work”released in 2024.

[23] In 2016, he co-founded the AI Index and serves on its Steering Committee[24] and was a co-author of the original (2016) report[25] for the One Hundred Year Study of Artificial Intelligence.

[34][35] For instance, along with Paul Milgrom, he wrote the lead article ("Complementarities in Organizations")[36] in the NBER Handbook of Organizational Economics.

Similarly, along with Daniel Rock and Chad Syverson, he wrote the lead article ("AI and the Modern Productivity Paradox")[37] in the NBER volume on the Economics of Artificial Intelligence.

Brynjolfsson has done research on digital commerce, the Long Tail, bundling and pricing models, intangible assets and the effects of IT on business strategy, productivity and performance.

[38] In several of his books and articles, Brynjolfsson has argued that technology is racing ahead, and called for greater efforts to update our skills, organizations and institutions more rapidly.

[42] Working with Avinash Collis, Felix Eggers, and others, Brynjolfsson developed new methods for measuring the digital economy using "massive online choice experiments".

[51] Brynjolfsson co-founded Workhelix, Inc, a venture-backed firm that helps companies assess their opportunities for using generative AI and other technologies.

[52] It applies the “task-based approach”, a methodology developed by Brynjolfsson, Tom M. Mitchell and Daniel Rock for analyzing various technologies’ ability to augment or automate individual tasks.

[53] Brynjolfsson was the co-founder of the MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge (IIC), a global tournament for entrepreneurs harnessing technology to ensure a more equitable future.