IMF Sees AI Lifting Growth but Warns of Correction Risk
The fund raised its 2026 global growth forecast while cautioning that unmet AI productivity expectations could trigger market setbacks.
Topics
News
- Agentic AI Push Spurs Calls for Human Oversight, Clear Rules
- India Plugs Into Pax Silica as AI Supply Chains Realign
- India AI Impact Summit 2026: Did India’s Tech Push Just Take a Hit?
- When Autonomous AI Tests the Limits of Oversight
- UN Bets on Science to Steady AI Governance
- Legacy IT Leaders Say India’s AI Future Lies in Talent, IP
The International Monetary Fund raised its global growth forecast for 2026 and highlighted the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on the world economy, even as it warned that overreliance on AI-driven optimism could pose risks to expansion.
In its latest update to the World Economic Outlook, the IMF projected global gross domestic product (GDP) will expand 3.3% in 2026, up 0.2 percentage points from its October forecast and equal to the 3.3% pace expected for 2025.
Growth in 2027 is seen at 3.2%.
The forecast reflects stronger investment in technology and AI, particularly in North America and Asia, and adjustment to easing US tariff pressures.
“We find that global growth remains quite resilient,” IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told reporters, noting that the fund’s 2025 and 2026 forecasts now exceed earlier estimates made before recent trade tensions.
The IMF said robust technology investment has helped offset headwinds from trade and geopolitical uncertainty, and forecasts stronger activity in countries including the US, Spain and the UK.
China’s economy is expected to grow about 4.5% in 2026, partly helped by reduced US tariffs and a shift in exports to other markets.
AI investment is a major factor in the revised outlook. The fund’s report notes that technology and AI-related spending has climbed to its highest share of US economic output in more than two decades, and that broader adoption of AI could lift global growth by up to 0.3 percentage points in 2026 and 0.1 to 0.8 percentage points annually over the medium term, depending on the pace of adoption and improvements in AI readiness.
But the IMF also struck a note of caution. The recovery in growth is driven by a “narrow base,” particularly surging tech investment, leaving the global economy exposed if expectations of productivity gains do not materialize.
A sharp reassessment of AI-linked profit prospects could trigger a market correction that trims growth by roughly 0.4 percentage points, the fund said in an analysis released alongside the outlook update.
“There is a risk of a correction, a market correction, if expectations about AI gains in productivity and profitability are not realized,” Gourinchas said.
The IMF’s updated outlook was released against a backdrop of ongoing trade tensions and geopolitical risk, and the fund continues to list tariff escalation, supply chain disruptions and geopolitical stress among the principal downside risks.
It noted that while tariff rates have eased somewhat since last April, persistent uncertainty around trade policy could weigh on investment and growth prospects.
Despite the headwinds, the IMF’s revised figures underscore the extent to which AI is reshaping the global economy.
Investment in data centers, AI chips and related infrastructure has supported corporate earnings and boosted equity markets, creating broad tailwinds for activity even amid wider macroeconomic challenges.
