Ankara: Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies became the hot topic of 2025 with a wide range of impacts on the global economy, ranging from increased efficiency to new revenue sources, while resulting in a multidimensional shift, deepening competition between nations and spurring debates over employment and the environment.
According to Anadolu Agency, the increased use of AI by corporations in manufacturing, logistics, finance, healthcare, and service sectors led to reduced operational costs while reportedly increasing efficiency. Automation and AI-powered decision-making systems reportedly saved companies billions of dollars in added value while creating a completely new global market of AI-based products, software, and consulting services.
The rise of AI gave way to new employment opportunities in AI engineering, data science, cybersecurity, and algorithm auditing. However, traditional job groups saw layoffs at the same time. Particularly in the automation of routine and repetitive tasks, humans were replaced by AI, which transformed the labor market.
Many countries, most notably the US, China, and EU member states, prioritized AI investments amid a sort of tech supremacy race this year. This race reached a level that could impact geopolitical balances. State-backed incentives, public-private partnerships, and national AI strategies came to the fore in this AI war.
The rapid widespread adoption of AI led to rising investments in AI infrastructure. The number of data centers worldwide increased, creating a new economic activity in the construction, energy, and technology sectors. High energy and water consumption of these data centers spurred debates over the environmental impact of AI.
The societal, economic, and political effects of AI riddled 2025-a year shaped by economic growth, a transformation in employment, accelerating global competition, and environmental costs.
The global adoption of AI may grow the global economy by an additional 15% by 2035, according to a report by consulting and auditing firm PwC on April 29. This would mean an additional average annual contribution of 1 percentage point to global economic growth. The impact of this caliber is comparable in scale to industrialization in the 19th century.
AI-driven restructuring of the global economy has already begun, the report suggested. The pressure on companies to reinvent themselves reached its highest point in 25 years, affecting 17 of 22 global sectors, according to PwC. AI is expected to create new economic areas, transcending traditional sector boundaries in the next decade.
Despite AI's rapid growth, climate-related physical risks will keep pressure on the global economy, PwC said. The global economy could fall around 7% below its potential in 2035 due to climate risks, the report showed. AI's energy consumption will only increase through the many data centers around the world, but limited AI applications could give way to some energy efficiency, offsetting the outcome, according to PwC.
As AI contributes to economic growth, it also takes away, resulting in layoffs across professions. A report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) titled Future of Jobs 2025 showed that around 92 million jobs will disappear around the world by 2030 due to AI-powered automation and other AI-related tech. New employment opportunities in data analysis, artificial intelligence development, and digital technologies are expected to emerge, but routine and repetitive jobs are at high risk.
Governmental measures against AI risks have been implemented. The EU's Artificial Intelligence Act entered into force on Aug. 1, 2024, but prohibitions on certain practices, including facial and emotion recognition in workplaces and educational institutions, became applicable on Feb. 2, 2025, in order to prohibit facial and emotion recognition using AI without consent. In the US, the TAKE IT DOWN Act was signed into law on May 19 to combat non-consensual 'deepfake' images and videos.
The reliability and misuse of AI were also hot topics this year. Incidents like the banning of the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek in some countries due to allegations of data collection as well as reports that ChatGPT conversations started appearing in search engine queries shook the confidence in AI tools.
Data centers, essential for running cloud services and AI applications, consume massive amounts of energy and resources, endangering both nature and human settlements. The US boasts over 4,000 data centers, according to the Pew Research Center. These centers' electricity consumption made up more than 4% of the country's total consumption last year, while electricity demand is expected to go up by 133% over the next six years.
Communities near data centers in the US, especially in states like Texas, Virginia, and Minnesota, suffer from declining water quality and even contamination. They are also faced with rising electricity and water bills as well as noise pollution. The use of chatbots, on the other hand, can negatively impact human mental health if used in place of professional psychologists, counselors, or regular friends.