World Bank Urges Emerging Nations to Embrace AI Amid Weak Growth

Developing economies must move fast in adopting artificial intelligence for their governments and businesses, the World Bank said, urging countries to adapt existing tools to local needs.

The Washington-based lender said that emerging countries should not compete with richer economies on building big data centers or creating large language models, while adapting small, low-cost AI tools could drive better medical care and educational outcomes.

The bank said that AI could help bring developing countries back to a growth path, as these economies are facing their weakest average economic performance in three decades.

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“AI is more likely to lend their workers a hand than put them out of work,” the report released Tuesday said. “AI could help extend otherwise costly medical, legal, educational, and agricultural services to underserved billions — doing in a decade what might otherwise take a century.”

Jobs in high-income countries are more than three times as likely to be at risk of automation by generative AI than those in low- and middle-income countries, the report said. AI can address shortages of skilled workers by helping teachers prepare lessons, enable nurses to read medical scans, and give farmers guidance on crop decisions to help make them more productive.