AI in Strategic Foresight: Reshaping Anticipatory Governance

AI is transforming strategic foresight, the field where experts explore plausible futures and develop strategies to help organizations, governments and others prepare for events to come. This paper from the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the OECD, explores how AI is reshaping this field.

Drawing on insights from 167 foresight experts in 55 countries, it reveals that experts value AI primarily for saving time and streamlining their work by handling repetitive and labour-intensive tasks. However, many respondents express concerns about the quality and trustworthiness of AI-generated content, noting its proclivity to hallucinations, and its limited capacity for inductive reasoning, as it draws from existing knowledge and struggles to embrace the forward-looking perspectives needed for strategic foresight. The paper suggests how to take advantage of AI where it can augment foresight, while limiting its pitfalls.