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Global Macro Research:

AI governance

AI governance

February 27, 2026 Fixed income

“For investors, appreciating the scale and complexity of the AI ecosystem is critical since entities can be exposed to different layers which carry different types of financial risks and their associated dependencies.”

  • Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping global economic, financial, and social systems with a speed and magnitude unseen in previous technological cycles. AI technologies can learn from data and solve problems in ways that resemble human thinking. AI is a layered, interdependent ecosystem involving physical, digital, and socio-economic components, where failures in one layer can cascade and amplify risks across the entire systems. This makes the risks associated with AI novel, complex and potentially fundamental.

  • For investors, this transformation is happening at pace and could introduce financially material risks to portfolios. As a non-linear, probabilistic, and self-amplifying system, AI can create unprecedented productivity opportunities and entirely new categories of operational, ethical, legal, reputational, social, and systemic risks. Perspectives from academics and hyperscaler incumbents highlight the adolescence of AI1 and financial materiality of its risks, underscoring the need for controls, model behaviour transparency and technical advances like interpretability and constitutional AI.

  • Sectors particularly vulnerable to AI risks include information technology, financials, healthcare, and retail, in our view.

  • AI governance will play a central role in how entities manage and respond to AI risks. It will function as an economic variable rather than an externality, and can directly influence company valuation. In our view, leadership in the use of AI requires careful review and design of enterprise arrangements, infrastructure systems, data provenance, model validation and integration in overall risk management, to survive and thrive in the AI-led transition. For these to interact effectively and efficiently, while mitigating risks, clear governance is essential.

  • Effectively assessing an entity’s approach to AI governance should focus on four dimensions: exposure, readiness, commercial strategy and execution, and monitoring and assurance. Insight sets out an initial approach to assessing a company’s AI governance based on these four dimensions – acknowledging that the pace of development in such a fast-moving space, such a framework will need ongoing review.

  • For capital allocators, there is a need to understand all of these components to effectively analyse and pick the winners and losers in this changing world.

“Against this backdrop, the current equilibrium looks fragile. It wouldn’t take much for either side of the balance to shift meaningfully, and the resulting upset could be abrupt.”

The global economy has entered what increasingly looks like an unstable equilibrium – a delicate balance between powerful tailwinds and equally powerful risks. AI‑driven investment is accelerating growth and supporting market confidence, yet debt dynamics, policy uncertainty, and shifting global capital flows are stretching the system in new and unpredictable ways.

This equilibrium will not last forever

That is why we remain cautious about deploying risk aggressively at this stage. Maintaining some dry powder gives us flexibility, and prioritising relative‑value opportunities over large directional positions feels like the more prudent approach until the underlying forces resolve themselves more clearly.

Government bonds: Opportunity in the tension

Long‑term yields are being pulled higher by relentless supply and strained fiscal outlooks, even as issuance patterns shift. Add in diverging central‑bank cycles, and we believe 2026 may be a year where relative‑value value strategies could be best placed to add value in fixed income markets.

Credit markets: Keep it simple, build resilience and seek out value

AI investment is driving a surge in issuance that will reshape global credit indices. This presents opportunity, but AI will also result in winners and losers, making active credit analysis critical. Flat credit curves and spreads near 20‑year lows means building resilience into investment strategies matters more than ever.

The US dollar: Formidable advantages but clear vulnerabilities

Structurally dominant, yet cyclically vulnerable, the dollar is stuck in its own unstable equilibrium. Growth, geopolitics and capital flows could break the range decisively.

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