AXA’s Future Risks Report 2023 Warns of a World in Simultaneous Crisis Mode

AXA’s Future Risks Report 2023 Warns of a World in Simultaneous Crisis Mode

(IN BRIEF) AXA has released its tenth edition of the Future Risks Report, which analyzes evolving and rising risks based on perceptions of experts and the general population. The report identifies the concept of “polycrisis,” where geopolitical tensions, emerging technologies like generative AI, and global warming occur simultaneously. Key findings include increased concern about AI and big data, continued focus on cybersecurity risks, global warming ranking as the top risk universally, and a sense of vulnerability among respondents. Trust in scientists and insurance companies to mitigate future risks has also increased.

(PRESS RELEASE) PARIS, 31-Oct-2023 — /EuropaWire/ — AXA publishes the tenth edition of its Future Risks Report. Carried out among 3,500 experts in 50 countries and a representative sample of 20,000 members of the general population in 15 countries, this study measures and ranks their perception of evolving and rising risks. Since 2020, this report has been produced in partnership with the IPSOS polling institute. The data is then analyzed by the AXA Group’s in-house experts.

This year, the study highlights the concept of polycrisis. Geopolitical tensions, the exponential emergence of new technologies (such as generative AI), or the acceleration of global warming, no longer follow one another but are happening at the same time.

The main findings of the 2023 edition of the Future Risks Report are as follows:

• The risks associated with artificial intelligence and big data show the greatest increase in the experts’ rankings, rising from 14th place in 2022 to 4th place in 2023. Most of the experts (64%) and the public (70%) even believe that AI research should be halted.
• For the sixth year running, cybersecurity risks are on the experts’ podium. For the first time, they have also made it into the Top 3 for the general population. The “cyber-war” motif was included in the list enabling the experts to justify their choice, closely linking this subject to that of geopolitical instability, in 3rd position this year.
• As was the case last year, global warming is in 1st place among both experts and the public. But, for the first time, this risk is ranked first in every region of the world, including by the public, without exception.
• The feeling of vulnerability remains at a high level. 84% of experts feel more vulnerable than they did five years ago at national levels (compared with 76% in 2020), and 73% at local levels (compared with 64% in 2020). This trend is also apparent in the general population, where feelings of vulnerability have increased by 7% in three years at both national and local levels.

However, the trust in various players to limit the consequences of new global crises is on the rise. In first place, scientists are trusted by 84% of experts and 70% of the general population. The level of confidence in companies is growing among both experts (72%, up 8% in one year) and the general population (49%, up 4%).

At the same time, 93% of experts and 74% of the general population believe that the role of insurers in limiting the impact of future risks is important or very important (compared with 89% and 69% last year).

THOMAS BUBERL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF AXA, “This tenth edition of the Future Risks Report highlights a world in polycrisis. The last three years have been impacted by the global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the worsening consequences of global warming… Now we have to add rising risks linked to artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, as well as an increasingly unstable geopolitical framework. Despite the scale of the challenges, we do not want to see the future as a risk. To achieve this, we need to build on the general population’s growing confidence in scientists – and therefore in progress and science – and in businesses, particularly insurance, which ¾ of those questioned considered to be capable of limiting the impact of future risks”.

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SOURCE: AXA