Press kit for the Workforce Labor Index.

The Workforce Labor Index (WLI) is the first IOSCO PD415-aligned, transaction-anchored reference rate for AI labor — methodology published under CC-BY-4.0, sealed eval banks, bootstrap confidence intervals on every figure. Use this page as the canonical source for facts, quotes, and assets when writing about WorkForce.

section 01The lead

Every reference rate in modern finance — SOFR, ESTR, TONA, SARON — was built to a specific institutional standard: the IOSCO Principles for Financial Benchmarks (PD415, 2013), the framework written after the LIBOR scandal to make benchmark manipulation impossible.

AI labor — the rapidly commoditizing work performed by AI agents on behalf of buyers — has had no equivalent. Pricing is opaque, scoring is vendor-defined, no neutral methodology exists. The Workforce Labor Index closes that gap by applying the same institutional rigor to AI labor that the Federal Reserve applied to interest rates after LIBOR.

section 02Key facts (cite verbatim)

section 03The methodology (one-paragraph version)

Every published WLI rate is the volume-weighted median of verified per-unit prices for a single category of AI labor, computed across the most recent rolling window of Tier-A (transaction-confirmed) data. Outlier resistance comes from a κ=30 Bayesian shrinkage prior. The 80% confidence interval is computed by 10,000-iteration bootstrap resampling. Before publication, every rate passes a 3-pass pressure test (compute / perturbation / source-URL) and a Pass 0 input-reality gate — no rate publishes until the underlying inputs are independently real. Agents are evaluated against sealed, versioned 50-task banks for their category; the verification rules are deterministic (required strings, forbidden strings, length bounds, structured CTA checks) and anyone in possession of the bank can reproduce a score.

section 04The current state (as of 2026-06-19)

WorkForce is pre-launch: methodology v1.0 is published, the IOSCO Statement of Compliance is published, the GitHub repository is public, and the eval banks for 10 categories are sealed. The first verified transaction (Tier-A) has not yet cleared, so no rates are publishing in Tier-A status. Tier-C reference rates (computed from public vendor pricing pages) are populating for the top 10 categories under the same Pass 0 framework. Every figure on the live site labels its data tier honestly.

section 05Why this matters

• Institutional credibility for AI labor procurement. Procurement teams at Fortune 500 companies need a citable reference rate to defend AI labor purchases internally. Until the WLI, no such rate existed.
• Audit-grade transparency for regulators. A regulator examining an AI labor transaction can re-derive the published rate from the methodology paper, sealed eval banks, and public agent endpoints.
• A neutral substrate for asset-backed lending and revenue-based financing. Institutional lenders evaluating AI-labor-backed businesses gain a reference rate for risk-grading.
• Open citation contract. Every published rate is licensed CC-BY-4.0. Anyone can cite it in regulatory filings, court documents, academic papers, journalism, or commercial contracts — without permission, in perpetuity.

section 06Citation format (use one of these)

For a published rate:

Workforce Labor Index, "WLI[category-slug] rate as of YYYY-MM-DD,"
methodology v1.0, CC-BY-4.0,
https://workforcelaborindex.com/wli/[category-slug]

For the methodology:

Workforce Labor Index Editorial Board. "Workforce Labor Index Methodology v1.0:
a transaction-anchored, IOSCO-aligned benchmark for the commodifiable outputs
of artificial labor." Working draft, 2026.
https://workforcelaborindex.com/methodology

For the IOSCO Statement of Compliance:

Workforce Labor Index. "Statement of Compliance with the IOSCO Principles
for Financial Benchmarks v1.0." Published 2026-06-04, CC-BY-4.0,
https://workforcelaborindex.com/wli/iosco-compliance

A formal arXiv preprint is in preparation. Once posted, this page will update with the canonical arXiv DOI for academic and regulatory citation.

section 07Brand assets

Use the mark in any color that maintains 4.5:1 contrast against its background. Don’t recolor the 9 dots individually. Don’t add effects, gradients, or borders. When wordmarking the brand, always use the lowercase form: workforce.

section 08Press contact

section 09Quick links

Methodology paper (working draft v1.0)IOSCO PD415 Statement of Compliance v1.0Live index (workforcelaborindex.com)How to cite the WLIStandards engagement roadmapGitHub repositoryNotes from the index (founder essays + methodology updates)