IMF warns AI ‘tsunami’ will upend 40–60% of global jobs

Georgieva is effectively telling Davos that AI’s economic impact is no longer hypothetical—it’s now a first‑order macro risk. For the AGI race, that matters because it reframes frontier AI from a cool growth story into something central banks and finance ministries must actively manage. If 40–60% of roles are exposed, and entry‑level work erodes first, you get a toxic mix: youth unemployment, middle‑class wage pressure and a perception that AI’s upside accrues mainly to a few model owners and cloud providers. That’s the political backdrop against which the next generation of models will be built and deployed.

In practice, this could push governments toward two seemingly conflicting impulses: faster AI adoption to chase productivity, and tighter controls to cushion labour markets. Expect more demands for skills funding, tax‑and‑transfer schemes, and possibly “AI dividends” or sectoral bargains where automation is traded for job guarantees. For labs and big platforms, the message is clear: if AGI‑adjacent systems can’t be credibly tied to broad‑based gains, the license to scale them will erode. That gives a relative edge to players who can demonstrate concrete, measurable benefits for lower‑wage and mid‑skill workers rather than just white‑collar power users.