Artificial intelligence has the potential to boost global economic output by up to 15 per cent over the next decade, says new PwC research.

This would effectively add one percentage point to annual growth rates – on par with the growth increment the world began enjoying with 19th-century industrialisation.

Business advisory firm PwC said its report, Value in Motion, was based on data-driven scenario analysis, which reveals that the global growth dividend from AI was not guaranteed and depended on more than just technical success.

“It also hinges on responsible deployment, clear governance and public and organisational trust,” researchers said. “In other scenarios analysed by PwC, characterised by lower trust and co-operation, the incremental boost to the economy from AI would be more muted at 8 per cent, or in a pessimistic scenario just 1 per cent.”

The research found that rapid reconfiguration of the economy is already under way. PwC analysis indicated that the pressure for businesses to reinvent themselves is at some of the highest levels seen in the past 25 years across 17 out of 22 global sectors, with $7.1 trillion in revenues set to shift between companies in 2025 alone, even before the recent global increase in tariffs.

The report also suggested that over the next decade, industries would reconfigure to meet human needs in new ways, leading to the formation of new domains that cross traditional sector lines.

For example, the rise of electric vehicles is bringing electricity providers, battery manufacturers, tech firms and others into the mobility domain, enabling them to create value alongside automobile manufacturers.

Mohamed Kande, the global chairman of PwC, said as the structure of the economy transformed, value would increasingly come from organisations that could connect the dots across traditional industry boundaries.

“By focusing on evolving customer needs and using technology to dramatically change the way business operates, business leaders can unlock a step change in growth,” he said.

Researchers also found that while AI is set to accelerate growth, the costs of physical climate threats will impose economic constraints. PwC’s economic modelling suggested that physical climate risks could leave the global economy nearly 7 per cent smaller in 2035 than it would have been otherwise.

Increased AI adoption is expected to lead to increased energy use by data centres. However, modest use of AI to drive energy efficiency could offset this increased use of energy.

PwC estimates that the energy use and emissions impact of AI would be neutral if each additional percentage point of AI use led to innovations which cut energy intensity by only 0.1 per cent.

The firm now has several programmes to harness AI including Agent OS, an AI enterprise command centre, and AI Expertise, a training programme.