The Global Impact Of Ai Mind The Gap

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 19, 2025, 9:45 PM

ByEugenio M Cerutti, Antonio I Garcia Pascual, Yosuke Kido, Longji Li, Giovanni Melina, Marina Mendes Tavares, Philippe Wingender Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management. Subject: Emerging and frontier financial markets, Financial markets, Production, Productivity, Total factor productivity Keywords: Africa, AI gap, AI preparedness, Artificial Intelligence, Asia and Pacific, Caribbean, Emerging and frontier financial markets, Global, IMF working paper No. 25/76, Middle East, Multi-Region DSGE Model, preparedness scenario, Productivity, productivity gain, Total factor productivity

https://doi.org/10.5089/9798229008570.001 Artificial intelligence is widely seen as a transformative force for productivity and innovation. Yet, its macroeconomic implications remain uncertain, especially from a global perspective. This column shows how structural differences in AI exposure, preparedness, and access in advanced economies, emerging markets, and low-income countries shape the distribution of AI-induced productivity gains. While improvements in AI preparedness and access can mitigate some disparities between countries, they are unlikely to fully offset them. AI-driven productivity gains could reduce the traditional role of exchange rate adjustments due to AI’s large impact on the non-tradable sector.

The magnitude of growth in total factor productivity (TFP) driven by AI remains a highly debated topic, marked by significant uncertainty. Focusing on the US, Acemoglu (2025) cautions that productivity gains may fall short of expectations, particularly when AI encounters complex, context-specific tasks. Aghion and Bunel (2024), by contrast, present a more optimistic view, highlighting AI’s potential to drive growth through automation and accelerated idea generation. Building on their insights and a rapidly growing literature, our new research (Cerutti et al. 2025) takes a global perspective. It links AI exposure, preparedness, and access to TFP growth driven by AI adoption.

To gauge AI’s impact on TFP in advanced economies, emerging markets and low-income countries, we combine microdata on the exposure of task- and sectoral-level jobs to AI with country-specific measures of AI preparedness and... The global adoption of AI technologies has revealed significant disparities among advanced economies, emerging markets, and low-income countries. These differences arise from structural, economic, and institutional factors, including access to high-quality data and the presence of supportive regulatory frameworks. While some nations are positioned to invest substantially in AI-driven innovation, others find it challenging to implement even basic AI solutions. Consequently, the widening gaps in competitiveness, productivity, and human capital development may exacerbate existing inequalities and generate new ones. Three critical elements influence country-level outcomes.

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General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html . April 11, 2025-Summary This paper examines the uneven global impact of AI, highlighting how its effects will be a function of (i) countries' sectoral exposure to AI, (ii) their preparedness to integrate these technologies... We feed these three aspects into a multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium model of the global economy and show that AI will exacerbate cross-country income inequality, disproportionately benefiting advanced economies. Indeed, the estimated growth impact in advanced economies could be more than double that in low-income countries. While improvements in AI preparedness and access can mitigate these disparities, they are unlikely to fully offset them. Moreover, the AI-driven productivity gains could reduce the traditional role of exchange rate adjustments due to AI's large impact in the non-tradable sector-a mechanism akin to an inverse Balassa-Samuelson effect.

November 3, 2025-Corporate asset locations are a critical source of financial-risk intelligence for investors. More so when coupled with powerful overlays related to physical climate risk. MSCI's new study, conducted in collaboration with Swiss Re Risk Data Solutions, analyzed more than 11,000 companies and 500,000 physical assets underpinning the listed-equity portfolios of 18 leading asset owners, representing USD 4 trillion... October 6, 2025-The Investment Company Institute (ICI) has published a new paper exploring the operational considerations for launching an ETF share class within an existing mutual fund portfolio. The expected SEC relief for funds with both ETF and mutual fund share classes provides an opportunity to broaden investor choice, promote efficiency and economies of scale, and enhance competition in the asset management... United Nations and International Labour Organization report

This report, co-authored by the United Nations and the International Labour Organization, addresses the critical issue of the uneven adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its implications for global equity, fairness, and social justice. Disparities in access to digital infrastructure, advanced technology, quality education, and training are deepening existing inequalities, particularly as the global economy shifts towards AI-driven production and innovation. Less developed countries risk being left behind, exacerbating economic and social divides. The report stresses the importance of targeted and concerted efforts to bridge this digital divide to ensure AI's potential to foster sustainable development and alleviate poverty. It highlights the role of the workplace in AI adoption, where productivity gains and improved working conditions can be achieved with the right conditions, including digital infrastructure, skills, and a culture of social dialogue. Promoting inclusive growth requires proactive strategies to support AI development in disadvantaged regions, enhance digital infrastructure, build AI skills, and ensure good quality jobs along the AI value chain.

International collaboration in AI capacity building is crucial to create a more equitable and resilient AI ecosystem, unlocking opportunities for shared prosperity and human advancement worldwide. Artificial intelligence is widely seen as a transformative force for productivity and innovation. Yet, its macroeconomic implications remain uncertain, especially from a global perspective. This column shows how structural differences in AI exposure, preparedness, and access in advanced economies, emerging markets, and low-income countries shape the distribution of AI-induced productivity gains. While improvements in AI preparedness and access can mitigate some disparities between countries, they are unlikely to fully offset them. AI-driven productivity gains could reduce the traditional role of exchange rate adjustments due to AI’s large impact on the non-tradable sector.

In November 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT introduced the world to the power of generative AI (gen AI). Since then, companies have been scrambling to respond and capture their share of the estimated $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion in new value potential offered by this revolutionary technology. This article is a collaborative effort by Arnav Dey, Bruce Lawler, Delphine Zurkiya, Vijay D’Silva, and Vivek Arora, with Kyle Danner, representing views from McKinsey’s Operations Practice and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Machine... That hasn't been easy, especially in operations. But research by MIT’s Machine Intelligence for Manufacturing and Operations (MIMO) and McKinsey has found emerging evidence that leading companies are now starting to generate value by applying a range of AI technologies to... For example, a top 10 retailer by global revenue developed an in-store chatbot for associates at its nearly 2,000 retail locations.

The chatbot makes thousands of pages of best-practice manuals easily accessible to store associates, reducing the time they spend on the phone with internal service centers to get questions answered. Ultimately, this can reduce training time for new employees and may lessen the impact of employee turnover. Elsewhere, a global pharmaceutical company is using gen AI to verify that supplier invoices comply with contractual terms. The company’s R&D division spends more than $4 billion a year on external products and services, and its contractual relationships are complex, involving variable discounts for different scopes of work, multiple currencies, and different... The prototype tool, which replaces labor-intensive manual invoice analysis, can extract invoice line items from PDF documents with 95 percent accuracy. In just four weeks, the new system identified more than $10 million in value leakage, an average of 4 percent of the spend analyzed.

Even better, the new tool also highlights recurring spend items not covered by contracts, giving procurement teams the opportunity to negotiate better deals.

The Global Impact Of Ai Mind The Gap

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