Overview
- The World Bank released the World Development Report 2026 on Tuesday, urging governments to follow an 'adopt, adapt, advance' path that prioritises small, low-cost AI tools tailored to local languages and services.
- The report finds fewer developing-country jobs are exposed to generative AI than in rich countries, estimating 4.5% of jobs at risk versus 14.2% in high-income economies and about 16.2% of jobs could see meaningful productivity gains.
- It warns that without fast action on basic gaps—reliable power, internet access, local data and digital skills—AI could widen international and domestic inequality, concentrate market power and erode trust in public institutions.
- The Bank points to early labour signals that matter for policy: a 1.6% fall in online job postings in South Asia after ChatGPT and platform data showing outsourced jobs to developing countries fell sharply in 2025.
- The report also flags environmental and governance trade-offs from scale-up, notes it used advanced AI tools in preparing the analysis, and stresses that most countries do not need frontier models or massive data centres to benefit.