Insights

Neuroscience reveals that working extensively with AI places significant cognitive demands on the brain, risking mental exhaustion or "brain fry." As AI automates routine tasks, human roles shift to higher-cognitive-load activities requiring analytical, creative, and adaptive thinking. Protecting and enhancing brain health—through improving both brain capability (cognitive skills) and brain battery (mental energy reserves)—is essential for sustained productivity. Effective brain health management involves deliberate practice to build skills and strategies to manage mental energy, ensuring workers can navigate AI-driven work without burnout. Organizations that prioritize brain health can optimize performance and resilience amid technological and economic challenges.
Education
Why brain-healthy thinking can prevent AI burn-out
Cyber threats targeting the space sector surged in 2025, with 407 identified cyber operations affecting ground-based IT environments of space companies, ground stations, and user modems, but no documented attacks on satellites in orbit. The majority involved hacktivist groups and took the form of DDoS attacks, ransomware, data leaks, and credential theft linked to geopolitical tensions. The lack of detected satellite cyberattacks stems from insufficient onboard detection capabilities, creating a blind spot in threat intelligence. The industry's historical reliance on security by obscurity has eroded due to commercialization and transparency, increasing vulnerability. Moving forward, adopting security by transparency and enhancing satellite-specific cyber threat intelligence are essential to improve detection and defense against space cyber threats.
ICT
Space cybersecurity: Why there is a hidden threat to satellites and global infrastructure
Tech sovereignty refers to a government's ability to control technology within its borders and maintain autonomy from foreign technologies. Governments adopt various policies to achieve this, categorized as cost (investing in domestic capacity), exit (ensuring the ability to disengage from unfavorable technology partnerships), and leverage (holding strategic assets sought by others). Open government principles—transparency, public oversight, and participation—are crucial in these areas to ensure policies deliver autonomy, value, security, and jobs effectively.
Why Open Government Matters for Getting Tech Sovereignty Right
Science fiction, particularly the 2018 film Annihilation, offers nuanced perspectives on AI's societal impact, contrasting popular doomsday narratives. The movie portrays an alien intelligence called the Shimmer that disrupts and reconfigures life’s fundamental patterns, embodying AI as a transformative parasite. It explores themes of human extinction—both terminal and final—and reflects anxieties about humanity's future amid AI-driven change. This aligns with philosophical views on disruption as inherent in communication and interaction. Rather than solely catastrophic, AI disruption might be reframed positively, challenging exclusivist techno-futurist visions and prompting reflection on the futures we choose to pursue.
An overlooked sci-fi movie shows how disruption by AI could be positive for society
Governments face increasing pressure to adapt to rapid technological, economic, and societal changes while maintaining stability and fiscal sustainability. A major transformation is needed, leveraging digital and AI tools and the opportunity presented by retiring civil servants to shift government culture. The OECD's "Government Unstuck" report analyzes innovative practices among OECD countries and proposes a clear set of actions to help governments effectively meet current and future challenges.
Health, Education, ICT
Government Unstuck: The Next Frontier of Government Transformation
Prime Minister Andy Burnham plans to adjust the pensions triple lock from April 2030, a policy ensuring state pensions rise annually by the highest of average earnings growth, inflation, or 2.5%. Introduced in 2011 following recommendations to combat pensioner poverty, the triple lock has increased median pensioner incomes but hasn't reduced relative poverty, which rose from 13% in 2011 to 16% in 2022. Historically, pension increases linked first to earnings or prices ("double lock") faced criticisms for unsustainability. Means-tested benefits like pension credit continue to play a crucial role in supporting low-income pensioners, supplementing the pension system beyond the triple lock mechanism.
Unpicking the pensions triple lock: where it came from, and what might happen next
China dominates global electric vehicle (EV) production, exporting many to Europe, prompting the EU to impose tariffs to protect its auto industry. However, Chinese firms have shifted production to Morocco, which avoids EU tariffs due to its free trade agreements. Morocco offers strategic advantages including a major port, automotive clusters, abundant critical minerals, and existing car manufacturing infrastructure from Renault and Stellantis. Significant investments from Chinese and European firms aim to expand Morocco’s EV and battery production. While Morocco's government supports this transition with free zones and carbon taxes, the long-term benefits depend on genuine local manufacturing growth rather than mere transit operations. This shift could make Morocco a key green industrial hub, despite uncertainties over EU policies and geopolitical risks.
Africa
China and the EU could turn Morocco into a surprise global hub for electric vehicles
AI-powered dashboards, widely adopted in corporate leadership for real-time strategic oversight, actually impair effective governance by fostering algorithmic micromanagement and eroding middle-management autonomy. These dashboards provide continuous, granular data that pressure executives into overreacting to short-term operational fluctuations rather than focusing on long-term strategy. This hyper-reactivity leads to organizational paralysis as managers prioritize metrics compliance over innovation. Additionally, executives risk overestimating the certainty of AI-generated predictions, which are limited by historical data and often blind to emerging market shifts. Effective leadership requires embracing "curated latency"—maintaining a deliberate delay in responding to data to preserve strategic focus and empower middle management.
Don’t let your AI dashboard drive your corporate strategy
Genomic medicine in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) lags due to underrepresentation in genomic datasets despite the region's unique medical needs and available talent. Arab populations face higher rates of recessive disorders and diseases like heart disease and diabetes, but limited regional data hampers diagnosis, risk prediction, and treatment personalization. Although sequencing costs have fallen and infrastructure improvements like AI-enabled cloud analysis offer new opportunities, lack of coordination and fragmented research efforts across 22 countries prevent effective collaboration. Empowering young scientists and building shared genomic infrastructure are critical to enhancing regional genomic sovereignty and equitable healthcare outcomes.
Africa | ICT, Health
How we build genomic sovereignty in the Middle East and North Africa
As AI reliance grows, governments must discern how much AI infrastructure truly requires sovereign control. Overapplying sovereignty—treating all workloads as critical—leads to higher costs, slower systems, and less agility. Sovereignty involves multiple dimensions: territorial, operational, technological, and legal control, which often diverge in practice. Effective strategy classifies workloads by data sensitivity, applying sovereignty selectively. While national security and regulated sectors often need full sovereignty, many applications benefit from global platforms for efficiency and flexibility. Sovereign AI investments are costly and time-consuming, emphasizing the need for clear workload classification and portability to maintain resilience without unnecessary overreach.
Governments want to safeguard their tech. But not all AI should be sovereign
Switzerland's baukultur approach emphasizes creating high-quality living environments that foster long-term value for communities, cities, and investors by integrating social, economic, and environmental considerations. Bern's Wankdorfcity 3 exemplifies this through collaborative planning, mixed-use design, heritage preservation, and maintaining existing businesses to build a neighborhood for around 1,000 residents and students alongside jobs and amenities. This "stacked city" concept combines living, working, education, and leisure spaces to encourage continuous activity and social interaction, enhancing belonging and resilience. Success stems from extensive collaboration among stakeholders to balance development goals with social cohesion, demonstrating that thoughtful urban design and long-term investment can create vibrant, sustainable communities beyond just constructing buildings.
How cities can build belonging into future urban developments
AI's energy consumption is rapidly increasing, with data centers powering AI models using electricity comparable to 100,000 households each, contributing about 0.5% of global electricity use. Despite this, efficiency per AI task is improving, though total demand drives rising energy use due to Jevons’s paradox. AI also offers significant climate benefits, such as improved extreme weather forecasting with less energy than traditional models, aiding disaster planning and risk assessment. Beyond forecasting, AI could transform climate policy by providing decision support for adaptation and mitigation at multiple levels. However, realizing these benefits requires stronger governance and energy efficiency measures for AI, highlighting that AI's climate impact depends more on regulation and use than its raw energy consumption.
Will AI be good or bad for the climate? Here’s what the latest evidence on energy use suggests
Small business owners in Europe, who constitute 93% of non-financial firms and employ about 30% of the workforce, are disproportionately drawn to radical right parties due to rising market concentration. As large firms dominate markets—driven by technology and weakened competition enforcement—small firms face revenue loss and market exit risks. This economic pressure undermines trust in institutions among small business owners, who perceive governments as aligned with dominant corporations. Consequently, they turn to radical right parties promising protectionism, economic nationalism, and lower taxes, which address both economic and status concerns. Empirical analysis across 14 EU countries shows that major mergers reducing small firms’ market share lead to increased radical right voting and decreased support for governing parties.
Rising market power is pushing small business owners towards the radical right
Healthcare data ecosystems remain fragmented, inequitable, and misaligned with patient, clinician, and public health needs. Three existing pathways to patient-centred AI—data collaboration, Whole System Approaches, and digital inclusion—have advanced the field but fail to provide continuous, participatory, outcome-driven learning essential for equitable AI. Adaptive Machine Learning (AML) is proposed as a fourth pathway, enabling continuous learning from real-world individual-level data to generate personalized, population-level insights that directly benefit contributing communities. AML integrates systems, personalized, and precision medicine through mechanisms like Integrative Data Governance, Adaptive Clinical Trials, and Evidence Sandbox Facilities, requiring standardized data recycling frameworks and adaptive evaluation to ensure bias mitigation, validation, and equitable implementation.
Health, ICT, Education
Advancing Patient-Centred AI With Adaptive Machine Learning
Public administration is central to addressing the global democratic crisis, requiring a foundational public philosophy beyond managerial skills. Curtis Ventriss and Tina Nabatchi propose a philosophy built on four key thinkers: Judith Shklar’s liberalism of fear emphasizes resisting institutional cruelty; Alasdair MacIntyre’s internal goods highlight cultivating virtue within practice; Isaiah Berlin’s concept of value conflicts stresses acknowledging inevitable democratic tensions; and Hannah Arendt’s enlarged mentality advocates for perspective-taking to support defensible judgment. Together, these principles guide administrative judgment, organizational culture, and institutional courage in democracy’s challenge.
Health
A Public Philosophy for Public Administration in Times of Democratic Crisis
Beautiful Particulars by David Weinberger explores how the concept of AI is fundamentally reshaping our understanding of morality, free will, creativity, causality, and reality itself. Through engaging examples, Weinberger reveals how AI moves beyond traditional laws and principles by emphasizing individual data points or "particulars." The book raises thought-provoking questions about AI’s perception, decision-making, creativity, and consciousness, offering a fresh and optimistic perspective on how machine learning is changing what it means to be human in the AI era.
Beautiful Particulars
The Wellcome Global Monitor 2026 reports on public trust in science based on surveys of over 140,000 people across 140 countries. Trust in science increased during the pandemic but has since declined to levels below those recorded in 2018. Trust varies significantly between and within countries and is closely linked to people's experiences with healthcare, public institutions, and their overall well-being. The study provides a comprehensive, globally comparable dataset on attitudes toward science and health.
Health
Wellcome Global Monitor 2026: Trust in science under pressure
Digital finance has significantly expanded financial inclusion globally but faces major risks from scams and cybercrime, costing around $1 trillion annually and undermining trust. Thailand exemplifies this challenge, where rapid adoption of digital payments and financial services has been accompanied by organized fraud, causing billions in losses and deterring users from the system. The 2026 IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok will spotlight “safe and inclusive digital finance,” addressing three key issues: cyber fraud, operational resilience vulnerabilities due to dependency on large tech providers, and fairness concerns as AI-driven decisions may exclude marginalized groups. Thailand’s multi-faceted response, including shared responsibility among banks, telecoms, and platforms, aims to rebuild trust by holding providers accountable and combating digital crime, showing that safety and inclusion must advance together.
Africa, ASEAN | Financial services, Health, ICT
Digital finance is reaching billions. Can we make it safe enough to trust?
Generative artificial intelligence can significantly enhance women’s entrepreneurship by transforming digital skills into measurable business results, improving productivity, reducing operating costs, and boosting revenue. Evidence from Georgia shows women now largely match men in digital competencies and internet access, yet face barriers due to limited access to specialist expertise. AI can address this by facilitating marketing, research, customer communication, and administration without requiring advanced training. A Mastercard–BTU pilot revealed women entrepreneurs saved 14 hours weekly, cut costs by 22%, and increased revenue by 15–20%, generating $2.5 in value per $1 invested. Key factors for success include connectivity, affordability, digital readiness, and human oversight. Effective AI entrepreneurship programs should establish economic baselines, assess digital skills, provide targeted AI training, and evaluate long-term outcomes.
Education, ICT
How AI can change the economics of women’s entrepreneurship
Developing countries face a $4 trillion annual shortfall in financing the Sustainable Development Goals, with development finance largely dominated by US dollar-denominated loans. This reliance exposes them to risks from US monetary policy shifts and economic uncertainties. Renminbi-denominated loans are emerging as a credible, accessible, and cost-effective alternative, particularly as concerns grow over the stability of US economic policies. Expanding currency options in development finance is crucial to provide more stability and reduce vulnerability for developing nations.
Financial services
Development Finance Needs More Than One Currency

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