IMF says AI investment lifts growth while threatening to reshape millions of jobs
By Pamela Fuentes | Pamphlets | October 12, 2026
Spending on artificial intelligence is helping keep global economic growth near 3%, the International Monetary Fund said Monday, even as its leaders warned that the same technology could substantially disrupt employment and widen differences between rich and poorer economies.
Speaking at international financial meetings in Bangkok, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva pointed to investment in data centers, computing capacity and related infrastructure as a source of resilience amid energy shocks and broader uncertainty.
The Fund sees especially large gains in parts of Asia. Georgieva cited potential growth effects of roughly half to one percentage point for advanced Asian economies and 0.2 to 0.8 percentage points for emerging ones. Such estimates are scenarios, not a guarantee that the gains will be shared evenly.
The employment outlook is less straightforward. The IMF has estimated that AI could affect about 40% of jobs worldwide and 60% in advanced economies. Being affected does not mean every such job disappears: occupations can be augmented, reorganized, degraded or eliminated as technology changes tasks and bargaining power.
ARCHIVE: IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva at the European Commission, not the Bangkok meeting. European Union / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
For workers, the immediate questions are who controls productivity gains and how quickly wages, hiring and retraining adapt. The same investment that increases measured output can concentrate revenues among firms that own data centers, chips, models and cloud infrastructure.
Singapore's President Tharman Shanmugaratnam warned that technological upheaval could disadvantage newer workers. Entry-level positions are especially vulnerable when employers begin automating routine tasks that once helped graduates gain experience.
World Bank President Ajay Banga emphasized a different possibility for poorer countries: smaller, practical applications in farming, medicine and education rather than a race to build the largest computing facilities. Whether those applications create broad benefits depends on power supply, connectivity, public institutions and workers' access.
A forecast of faster growth therefore cannot settle the distributional debate. If AI allows more to be produced with fewer working hours, the result could be shorter hours and better public services, or it could be higher profits alongside weaker job security. Policy choices and labor institutions make a difference.
The IMF's case for technological optimism also faces a physical test. Large-scale computing consumes electricity, water and substantial capital, while the benefits of new models remain uneven and hard to measure across sectors.
The Bangkok debate makes one thing clear: AI is already a macroeconomic force. Whether the expansion serves workers and public needs, rather than simply raising asset values, is a political-economic question that growth forecasts alone cannot answer.
Lead image credit: ARCHIVE: International Monetary Fund headquarters, Washington, March 2026. APK / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
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