Will the proliferation of AI and machine learning reinforce the worldwide digital divide? It's one of the questions the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) and Global Cities Talent Competitiveness Index (GCTCI) seek to answer by benchmarking the ability of countries and cities to compete for talent. An answer has historically proven elusive, but the 7th annual reports published by Insead, Adecco Group, and Google suggest it might instead provide "significant" opportunities despite the fact that AI skills are "scarce" and "unequally distributed" across nations. "AI is changing many facets of business and society and, if properly used and governed, has potential to foster sustainable development," said Katell Le Goulven, executive director of the Insead Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society. "The GTCI report argues that with multi-stakeholder cooperation the technology could help achieve some of the SDGs [the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals] such as those related to health (via personalized remote diagnosis and big data analysis to track and reduce endemic disease). But it also points to the imperative of closing the global digital skills gap to harness the potential of AI for good."

Artificial intelligence (AI) presents a "huge opportunity" for media, healthcare and other companies when it comes to their financial health and how "people communicate and trade with each other," according to Gary Rapsey, global assurance disruption and innovation leader at PwC UK. Major advances are being made in healthcare today, with the help of AI, he said June 7 at the H2O World Conference. "When I contrast that with company health, however … little has changed in that space in the way that company health is both diagnosed and company health cured," he said. Unlike in the world of healthcare, the best technology isn't typically being used to help companies' accountants, he told the conference. He explained: "Accountants are there to tell the truth. They're there to keep businesses and the market honest. But the problem that we face today is multiple-fold. We have a huge explosion of data – some real, some not real…. We have information which cannot be contained within companies."