After facing crisis upon crisis in the past few years, the world needs to build foundations that can withstand shocks that have become more frequent, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said yesterday.
“I am worried that we are not completely internalizing yet that this is how the world is going to be,” Georgieva said on Bloomberg’s podcast Leaders with Francine Lacqua. “We are not going to get to a place where shocks are gone.”
Georgieva, who has been at the helm of the Washington-based lender since 2019, has been through the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the tariffs turmoil and now the conflict in the Middle East.
Photo: Bloomberg
One major transformation underway is the spread of artificial intelligence (AI), and its impact on labor markets and local economies.
Georgieva said organizations, including hers, failed to recognize inequalities arising from globalization and she wants to make sure it would not happen with AI.
“We collectively, including the fund, did not appreciate the backlash against globalization that came from the fact that, yes, the world economy is doing better as a whole, but many communities were hollowed out because their jobs disappeared and there was not enough attention to them,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I’m very keen not to see repeated is the same with artificial intelligence.”
Separately, HSBC Holdings PLC chief executive officer Georges Elhedery said people would remain central to banks even as AI becomes ubiquitous, as many CEO comments in have rattled staffers about the future of the industry.
“I need human judgement, I need human decisionmaking, I need human accountability at the core,” Elhedery said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
While AI would allow for a revolution in the way banks served their clients with the potential for productivity gains and hyper-personalized services, Elhedery said that people were still key and that it could even mean more hiring in the future.
Bloomberg has reported that HSBC is weighing cutting as many as 20,000 roles, or about 10 percent of its workforce, in the coming years as a result of AI.
“The bank of the future means more capabilities,” Elhedery said. “I would like to be able to accelerate and bring forward a lot of ambitious deliverables we have for the future, and that requires investment, and that is job creation.”
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