Leading consultancies have portrayed AI as a revolutionary general-purpose technology that can add to global economic output and increase global GDP by several percentage points. Recent company surveys found business leaders eager to embrace AI and thereby future-proof their companies. Real-world experiences have been mixed, however. Core AI companies have seen their valuations soar to unseen heights; many others struggle to exploit AI’s transformative potential to improve their bottom line. Is the AI economy a ‘winner-takes-all’ game that only benefits a small number of firms and countries after all? And what role should governments play to support a digital economy that benefits citizens and companies, rather than only a handful of tech giants from abroad?

In this panel discussion, we tackle these questions and more, providing an opportunity for four business and strategy consulting experts to examine how AI shapes companies and productivity, and where public policy enters the picture – both as undesirable obstacle and as essential support for healthy digitization.