Anton is a Professor at the University of Virginia, Department of Economics and Darden School of Business, and Faculty Director of the Economics of Transformative AI (EconTAI) Initiative. His current research examines the economic and financial implications of artificial intelligence and the transition towards transformative AI. He analyzes how to steer progress in AI to lead to shared prosperity and how to prepare our society for the transformative potential of AI in the future. For his work in the field, he was named to TIME's 2025 TIME100 AI list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence, Vox's 2024 Future Perfect 50, and serves on the Anthropic Economic Advisory Council.

His research investigates AI's implications for economic growth, labor markets, inequality, and market concentration. He has served on the G7 Panel of Experts on AI and testified before the US Senate on AI's workforce impacts. His work on preparing for transformative AI has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and TIME Magazine. He edited the Oxford Handbook of AI Governance, teaches "The Economics of AI" on Coursera, and publishes a semi-annual article series "Generative AI for Economic Research" in the Journal of Economic Literature examining how researchers can leverage AI tools. In his past research, he investigated the mechanics of financial crises and developed policy measures to prevent future crises, including an influential framework for capital flow regulation in emerging economies.

He is a Research Associate at the NBER, a Research Fellow and Leader of the AI Research Network at the CEPR, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2007 and has held positions at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland as well as visiting appointments at Harvard, the World Bank, IMF, and BIS.