The International Labour Organisation (ILO), the UN's labour agency, said in a policy brief on 4 November that AI's effects on jobs so far are "modest and slow-moving, even in advanced economies", and warned developing economies of "disruption without dividend"1. Earlier ILO, World Bank and BIS work had already found rich countries more exposed to AI than poor ones. The brief adds that poorer countries also stand to gain less: in a high-productivity scenario, ten-year output gains reach about 5% in advanced economies and about 2.7% in low-income ones.
Patchy power supplies cut exposure further in poorer countries. "Limited access to electricity further reduces effective exposure," the brief says, citing a study of 25 countries with 3.5bn people that puts high exposure at about 12% of workers in low-income countries and 15% in lower-middle-income ones.
Use is uneven inside economies too: in 2025, 17% of small firms used at least one AI tool, against 55% of large ones. "The AI divide is a capability and governance divide, not simply an access gap," the ILO writes. For a low-income country, that means fewer jobs at risk in the near term and a smaller share of the output gains when they arrive.
