Will AI Secure Or Shake Swiss Prosperity?

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Artificial intelligence (AI) could close the output gap caused by an ageing population or create mass unemployment and turn the global distribution of wealth on its head. Which scenario will come to pass, and what will determine the future? This content was published on May 4, 2026 - 09:00 9 minutes

I write about demographic developments, societal trends and debates in Switzerland. I joined SWI swissinfo after 15 years at a local newspaper in Zurich.

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Behind every political debate in Switzerland that even remotely concerns the economy, the same unspoken feeling seems to emerge: the fear of losing everything.

Switzerland, a poor agricultural nation just over a century ago, lives with the paranoia of a gambler. Today, measured by both average income and assets, it is the richest country in the world.

Admittedly, wealth is unevenly distributed, and yet one in four pensioner households in Switzerland has over CHF1 million ($1.27 million) in assets. In most cases, this wealth is tied up in their homes. This“concrete gold” is largely due to having the highest mortgage debt in the world, with private households and banks taking a risky gamble on the future.

Even in the optimistic scenario, there are losers

So how stable is the economic future of a country with no natural resources and negligible international importance, at a time when AI and geopolitical conflicts are reshaping the world?

With this question in mind, we met with Jan-Egbert Sturm in Zurich. The director of the federal technology institute ETH Zurich's KOF Swiss Economic Institute is regarded as one of the country's most prominent economic analysts.

Sturm identifies four major risks for Switzerland – many of them shared by other successful economies: an ageing population, climate change, deglobalisation and artificial intelligence. Of these, however, AI is the only one he also views as a potential opportunity.

“The productivity gains from artificial intelligence could mitigate the negative effects of the other three trends,” he says. In recent decades, Switzerland has closed its productivity gaps through skilled immigration.“That has worked extremely well,” says Sturm. With AI, he believes the opportunities are now expanding.

>>Read this article about how demographic change and workforce migration are transforming Europe and Switzerland.

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