ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the global economy, but experts warn the next phase of the AI revolution may be defined less by technological breakthroughs than by unequal access to the technology itself.
Founder of 27 Group Girish Mavath Ramachandran said as AI becomes embedded in business operations, education, healthcare and everyday life, economists say the benefits are unlikely to be distributed evenly, raising concerns that the technology could widen existing divides between countries, companies and workers.
Global adoption continues to gather pace.
Microsoft estimates that generative AI adoption reached 16.3 per cent globally during the second half of 2025. However, the technology's uptake remains uneven, with adoption at 24.7 per cent in developed economies compared with 14.1 per cent across developing nations, highlighting an emerging global AI gap.
In the United States, a Federal Reserve survey found that generative AI usage among adults climbed to 54.6 per cent over the past year, underlining how quickly AI has entered mainstream use.
AI Is Reshaping The Digital Economy
The rapid expansion of AI is also transforming how consumers access information and how technology companies generate revenue.
Google's search advertising business posted a record US$63.3 billion in second-quarter revenue for 2026 despite the introduction of AI-generated search summaries and conversational AI tools, suggesting artificial intelligence is changing online search rather than replacing it.
Meanwhile, the AI-powered search market, estimated at US$16.3 billion in 2025, is expected to expand rapidly as businesses and consumers increasingly adopt AI-assisted services.
The trend illustrates that AI is no longer a niche technology but a foundational layer underpinning digital commerce and information services.
IMF Warns Productivity Gains May Not Be Shared Equally
The International Monetary Fund has warned that artificial intelligence could affect around 40 per cent of jobs worldwide, with advanced economies likely to experience the greatest impact.
Rather than replacing every worker, AI is expected to complement employees with higher-level skills, enabling them to become more productive and command higher wages.
Conversely, workers unable to adapt or access AI technologies may face weaker wage growth, reduced opportunities or displacement, increasing both income and wealth inequality.
The IMF has cautioned that AI could exacerbate inequality even if it boosts global economic output, unless governments invest in education, workforce retraining and policies that broaden access to the technology.
Big Tech's Advantage Could Widen
The Bank for International Settlements has echoed similar concerns, arguing that AI could reinforce the dominance of companies already possessing vast financial resources, computing capacity and proprietary data.
Developing frontier AI systems requires enormous investments in specialised chips, cloud infrastructure and data centres — resources largely concentrated among a handful of global technology firms.
Smaller businesses, lacking comparable financial and technological capabilities, may struggle to compete as AI increasingly becomes essential to productivity and innovation.
Experts warn this could further concentrate market power while widening the productivity gap between technology leaders and the rest of the economy.
The High Cost of AI Infrastructure
Although many AI services currently appear inexpensive or free to end users, the infrastructure supporting them is anything but.
Training and operating advanced AI models require significant investment in semiconductor chips, high-performance computing, electricity, cooling systems and water-intensive data centres.
Goldman Sachs estimates global AI-related capital expenditure could reach US$539 billion in 2026 as technology companies accelerate investment in computing infrastructure.
Whether those investments ultimately generate sufficient commercial returns remains one of the biggest questions facing the industry.
Should AI providers eventually pass more of those infrastructure costs on to customers, premium AI services may become increasingly accessible only to larger corporations and wealthier users.
Access May Become The Defining Issue
Girish argues that the next phase of the AI revolution may be defined not by technological capability but by affordability and accessibility.
“Countries with stronger digital infrastructure, greater investment capacity and better education systems are likely to capture a disproportionate share of AI-driven productivity gains,” he said. Likewise, businesses able to invest heavily in AI could widen their competitive advantage, while smaller firms risk falling further behind.
“The concern is that AI may create a new form of digital inequality, where access to the most capable systems becomes a competitive advantage reserved for those with sufficient financial resources.
“For policymakers, the challenge is shifting from encouraging AI innovation to ensuring its benefits are distributed more broadly,” Girish added.
The ultimate measure of AI's success, he argues, will not simply be how intelligent the technology becomes, but whether its economic and social gains are shared widely enough to narrow inequality rather than deepen it.
The challenge, he argues, is no longer whether AI will transform economies.
It is whether the benefits of that transformation will be shared broadly enough to narrow existing inequalities rather than deepen them. - July 26, 2026
