The International Monetary Fund again edged its 2026 global growth forecast higher on Monday as businesses and economies adapt to U.S. tariffs that have eased in recent months and a continued AI investment boom that has fueled asset wealth and expectations of productivity gains.
The IMF in its World Economic Outlook update forecast global GDP growth at 3.3% in 2026, up 0.2 percentage point from its last estimate in October. That’s even with 3.3% growth in 2025, which will also beat the October estimate by 0.1 percentage point, the IMF said.
The global crisis lender forecast 2027 growth at 3.2%, unchanged from the previous forecast. It has revised global growth rates higher since last July in response to trade deals that have reduced President Donald Trump’s tariff rates that peaked in April 2025.
“We find that global growth remains quite resilient,” IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told reporters, adding that the Fund’s 2025 and 2026 growth forecasts now exceed predictions made in October 2024, before Trump was elected to a second term.
“So, in a sense, the global economy is shaking off the trade and tariff disruptions of 2025 and is coming out ahead of what we were expecting before it all started,” Gourinchas said.
He said businesses have been able to adapt to higher U.S. tariff rates by rerouting supply chains, while trade agreements have lowered some duties and China has shifted exports to non-U.S. markets. The latest IMF forecasts assume an effective U.S. tariff rate of 18.5% down from about 25% in the Fund’s April 2025 forecast.
AI and Global Growth
The IMF report lists AI as among risks that are tilted to the downside, along with disruptions to supply chains and markets from geopolitical tensions as well as new flare-ups in trade tensions.
But it said that AI represents significant upside for the global economy if the investment surge leads to rapid adoption and productivity gains are realized and boost business dynamism and innovation.
“As a result, global growth may be lifted by as much as 0.3 percentage points in 2026 and between 0.1 and 0.8 percentage points per year in the medium-term, depending on the speed of adoption and improvements in AI readiness globally,” Gourinchas said.
