IMF chief Georgieva warns AI risks may outweigh benefits without urgent global safeguards

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, has compared artificial intelligence to a Formula 1 car that could go off track, calling for urgent guardrails as the technology threatens to erode government tax bases worldwide. Speaking at the IMF-World Bank summit in Bangkok, she warned that AI could affect 60 per cent of jobs in wealthy nations, squeezing incomes and gutting revenue streams that governments depend on. She said AI risks may now exceed its opportunities without an ethical framework, and that countries are ill-prepared for the fiscal shock.

Georgieva called AI a 'slow-moving tsunami', warning it could raise inequality and reduce labour income across advanced economies.