Davos: Collaboration While Balancing AI Advancements and Globalization
Cooperation, growth and artificial intelligence (AI) dominated the discussion last week at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2025 at Davos, Switzerland.
“The future does not just unfold. The future is shaped by people,” said Klaus Schwab, founder and board chairman of WEF, an international think tank, in a press release. “By embracing constructive optimism and believing in our collective capacity and commitment to improve the state of the world, we can shape the ‘intelligent age’ as an era where every human being can realize their full potential.”
The five-day event, whose theme was “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age,” attracted nearly 3,000 leaders — from business, academia and government, including heads of state — from 130 countries. There were more than 500 sessions and workshops that prompted discussions around managing geopolitical and economic disruption as well as “how to unlock the benefit of new technologies responsibly, strengthen social and economic resilience, safeguard the planet, and advance regional and global security,” the statement said.
Collaboration
Uncertainty is driving most supply chains, and much of that disruption stems from geopolitical discord.
“We are in one of the most complex and consequential moments in generations, when fast-changing geopolitical, geoeconomic and technological currents are shaping our societies and our industries and will do so for years to come,” said Børge Brende, WEF president and CEO, in the release. “In this era of uncertainty, we must find ways of working together because force cannot replace discourse and conflict cannot replace compromise.”
Mirek Dušek, WEF managing director, said that despite geopolitical tension, signs point to cooperation as a measure to improve lives. “Across the world, many economies are stepping up to work with one another on advancing innovative and growth agendas for all,” he said.
WEF cited another indication of potential cooperation and collaboration: On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced he would like to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin to discuss a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Globalization as a Unifying Force
Other leaders also called for cooperation among countries and governments. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said Europe should become more competitive and not take anything for granted. “We must look for new opportunities wherever they arise,” she said. “This is the moment to engage beyond blocs and taboos. And Europe is ready for change.”
Chinese vice premier Ding Xuexiang recalled a speech by Chinese president Xi Jinping in which he talked about upholding solidarity and cooperation, despite tensions, “to build a community with a shared future for mankind.” He then added some thoughts of his own.
“As we meet, transformation not seen in a century is accelerating across the world,” he said. “With imminent tariff wars and trade wars, an ongoing tug of war between the forces for and against economic globalization, and intense rivalry between multilateralism and unilateralism, the global governance system is undergoing profound adjustments.”
He continued: “(W)e need to jointly promote a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. Economic globalization is an inherent requirement for the development of productive forces, and an inevitable result of technological advancement.”
Among the takeaways Kristalina Georgieva, managing director at the International Monetary Fund, gleaned from the meeting is that the world is undergoing a tremendous transformation in technologies and policies, from AI “to the way countries compete and cooperate to patterns of capital flows and trade,” she said on LinkedIn. Some countries risk falling behind, she said, and need the help of the international community.
"What we are going to see over time is a reflection in trade and economic relations of a geopolitically changing world: More regional cooperation, more cooperation based on supply chains, more engagement that allows countries to achieve their objectives,” she said in the WEF press release.
Technology
Discussions centered around how business can navigate technological shifts and new industry dynamics, including advances in AI.
“In this era of rapid technological change, leaders must balance innovation with responsibility,” Jeremy Jurgens, WEF managing director, said in the press release. “Our discussions focused on maximizing the benefits of emerging technologies, informing governance frameworks to build effective mitigation strategies, and fully using them to drive prosperity and growth.”
At Davos, business leaders said they are taking a candid look at where they are in their AI journeys, said Florian Mueller, Ph.D., head of Bain & Company’s AI, insights and solutions practice in Europe, Middle East & Africa, in a statement. “These discussions emphasized the need to balance the promise of AI with the critical practicalities of scaling at pace and achieving sustainable impact,” he said.
AI is moving decisively beyond experimentation to creating real-world value, Mueller said. “For AI to deliver on its transformative potential, CEOs must combine visionary leadership with a holistic approach to overcoming the potential obstacles of implementation and scaling. The journey may be challenging, but the opportunities that AI offers remain immense.”
This year will be another pivotal year for AI, said Anne Hoecker, global head of Bain & Company’s technology practice. “Many of the AI applications we see today will become even more powerful,” she said in a statement, “while new ones will emerge, driven by a significant rise in AI agents — agentic AI — transforming areas such as finance, customer support and sales and by robotics becoming AI’s next frontier.”
She said that AI will be the driving force behind many technology markets from infrastructure to services. Bain, she said, estimates that the potential market to reach nearly US$1 trillion by 2027.
“We’re seeing the focus shifting from trials and proof of concepts to scaling valuable use cases,” she said. “And companies that successfully scale use of (generative) AI into their operations are seeing impressive results.”
(Photo credit: World Economic Forum)