IMF Chief Says AI Investment Is Holding Up Global Growth While Disruption to Jobs Builds

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Monday that heavy investment in artificial intelligence is keeping the world economy growing at around 3 percent despite an energy supply shock, while warning that its effects on jobs, taxation and education are building more slowly than its effects on growth.

Kristalina Georgieva made the remarks in Bangkok, Thailand, at the opening of the weeklong IMF and World Bank meetings, according to Reuters reporting carried by Business Recorder.

What she said about growth
"AI, love it, hate it. It's already here," Georgieva told the meeting, describing the technology as a "demand shock, an investment shock." That shift "into higher gear," she said, "is what is keeping the world economy growing at around 3 percent." The IMF forecast 3 percent global growth for 2026 in July and was due to release an updated outlook on Tuesday, October 13, so the figure is one to watch. The IMF has estimated that AI investment could raise growth in advanced Asian economies by 0.5 to 1 percentage point and in emerging Asian economies by 0.2 to 0.8 percentage points.

What she said about jobs
Georgieva described the broader effects as a "slow-moving tsunami" of disruption to labour markets, taxation and education, as income shifts from labour to capital. IMF research found that AI would augment, downgrade, or eliminate about 40 percent of jobs worldwide, rising to as high as 60 percent in advanced economies. That figure comes from earlier IMF research, not a new forecast, and "affected" does not mean "lost." An initial study found that 10 percent of United States jobs already require AI skills. The IMF found that routine, repetitive jobs are shrinking, while low-paying jobs are growing in construction and data centres.

Disagreement on entry level work
Other speakers differed on the effects on young workers. Singapore's president, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, said "the first rung in employment, your first job upon graduation, is now seeing less demand," and warned of a widening gap between developing and advanced economies. World Bank president Ajay Banga said he was not convinced AI would destroy entry-level jobs, arguing that most disruption would occur in advanced economies building large AI models, and that the World Bank focuses on "small AI" for emerging markets. Georgieva herself did not single out young workers in the remarks reported.

Why it matters in Canada
Canada lost 68,300 jobs in September, according to Statistics Canada data Reuters reported, including a 48,000 decline in employment among people aged 15 to 24. NordoVista found no evidence that artificial intelligence caused those losses, and the sectors that lost the most jobs were health care, education, and social assistance. But the questions Georgieva raised- who is displaced, who benefits, and how governments replace lost tax revenue from labour income- are ones Canadian policymakers will face whether or not AI explains this month's numbers.

What to watch
The first test is the IMF's updated outlook on Tuesday: whether it keeps growth near 3 percent and how much it attributes to AI investment. The longer test is whether data on young workers, rather than forecasts, begin to show the entry-level effect some speakers describe, and others doubt.