The current debate about AI has largely focused on a familiar question: How much will AI increase productivity? For central banks, the more important issue is not how much AI increases productivity but how AI changes the relationship between inflation, growth and financial stability. Diagnosis — not implementation — may become the central challenge of monetary policy in the AI era. Monetary policy meets structural changeThis creates one of the most difficult policy environments central banks have ever faced. The central bank of the AI economyArtificial intelligence does not require central banks to abandon their traditional mandates.