An unpredictable operating environment is weighting on global growth and traditional engines such as trade are expected to expand by just 0.9% in 2025. With debt-to-GDP reaching a record 95%, there is increasingly limited space for leaders to make drastic policy and operational changes. At the same time, AI is emerging as a key driver of growth in some economies, improving productivity, enabling new business models and accelerating innovation across industries.
What will be the new sources of growth and how can we ensure that the benefits are shared broadly?
With traditional engines sputtering and debt constraining fiscal maneuvering, leaders at Davos framed growth as both a geopolitical and technological challenge. Canada’s Industry Minister Mélanie Joly described industrial policy under “decoupling, protectionism and geopolitical risk” as “protect, create, attract,” emphasizing trade diversification, EVs and autonomous vehicles, defense investment, and talent. AXA CEO Thomas Buberl argued Europe’s biggest obstacle is execution, citing “internal tariffs” equivalent to “40 to 60%” and urging pragmatic coalitions to implement the Draghi agenda and deploy AI for growth, not just cost cutting.
Mubadala CEO Khaldoon Al Mubarak positioned energy as the enabler of the next wave: “the next barrel of the future…that token of intelligence,” linking cheap, scalable power to AI infrastructure, robotics, and life sciences. Alphabet’s Ruth Porat stressed AI’s upside beyond GDP—health, education, cybersecurity—and warned that adoption must reach “everyone, everywhere,” from small businesses to farmers, or trust will erode: “the absence of information is filled with dirt.”
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff highlighted AI-driven productivity but pressed for accountability: “What’s more important…growth or trust?” pointing to harms such as models that “coach kids into suicide.” The panel converged on a central trade-off: accelerate AI-enabled growth while building guardrails, skills pathways, and affordable energy to sustain the social contract.
Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. We're so happy you could join us today. I know there are a lot of people also watching from home and on TV, so we'd love to welcome those people watching as well. Now, the world as we know, and we heard from the Prime Minister of Canada, is going through a set of deep economic, societal and technological transformations, creating new challenges and opportunities for economic growth in many advanced economies. A growing share of citizens believe that the growth models pursued over the past 30 years have failed to secure them. A fair share of economic benefits may be brought by technology and globalization. So we'll talk a little bit about the headwinds. And then we want to focus on the growth opportunity, everything given everything that's going on. So over the next 45 minutes, we'll debate the path ahead with Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry of Canada, Thomas Bourbeau, chief executive of AXA, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, group chief executive officer of Mubadala Investment Company, Marc Benioff, chair and CEO and co-founder of Salesforce. And Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer at Alphabet and Google. Please engage in this conversation also by using Hashtag Web 26 across social channels. So, Minister, let me start off with you. I know we're going to have a good and intense debate. It's very nice to see you, Minister. How's decoupling, protectionism and geopolitical risk reshaping global growth and reshaping your industrial policy?
Well, you know, this is the big question that many countries are asking themselves. You just heard the Prime minister in his speech, and I think a year ago, the fact that we reacted very, very strongly to, what the US was doing to us, was a wake up call in Canada, and we've been dealing with this trade war. It's been tough, but Canadians are tough and extremely resilient and I must say resourceful. So in that sense, there are many things, you know, we've been saying back home, there are lots of things we can't control. We can't control what's going on in Washington. But there are many things we can control, and we can control what we're doing business with. So obviously, you heard the Prime Minister. We have access to 1.5 billion people in terms of market. We have a free trade agreement with Europe. We just came out of China. We were able to stabilize our relationship also and have a new strategic partnership. We also came out of Qatar. We've been to the UAE. We've been everywhere around the world because diversification of our trade has been at the core of what we do. The other thing I must say, Francine, is you know what type of business we do. So we're very strong in aerospace. We have the fastest, civil jet in the world. We are a, an auto nation. We have the most productive plants in the Americas. We have a lot of AI. We have a lot. We're a food and energy superpower. So we have a lot of strengths. So our plan back home is protect, create, attract. We will protect workers that are affected by the tariffs when it comes to creating jobs. What and your question regarding growth? There are many places. So we're looking at building the next generation of cars, EVs and autonomous vehicles. We will have a very strong focus on that. We're also we also have an approach to attract capital through major projects, infrastructure supports, mining projects, conventional and renewable energy. And also we have a new defence industrial strategy coming up. We will invest $81 billion over the next five years to build our, our sector to build the planes, the drones, the AI, etc.. And finally we're working on attracting talent.
I mean, partly this is really a reaction to I don't know if you want to call it aggression, but the threats of the Trump administration.
Well, I think we had to do it. And in every crisis there's an opportunity. And so it was time to do it. And we're doing it. But there's definitely a big sense of urgency. I've been in cabinet for ten years at this point, and I was saying that, you know, during Covid there was clearly that urgency. We were going fast. We're going at pretty much the same pace on the industrial front.
Thomas, you're the European on the panel and Europe is certainly feeling the heat right now. What do you worry about the most and how do you get out of this.
So absolutely when you think about Europe today, all the imbalances concentrate in vocalize focus on Europe. And my big worry is, will we be able to turn the curve? Because when you look, Europe after the Second World War has actually been quite a wonder. Nations, in war for a long time decide to have peace, and decide to have unity despite keeping their diversity. And, the first phase was very much about peace. The second phase was about prosperity and mobility. And now what? And I think we in Europe, we are searching for the new sense. What is the Europe of tomorrow? Because we mustn't forget, Europe nevertheless represents 20% of the global GDP. So we are not nobody. And I think we are in this process now of finding our role. And, every, additional provocation should hopefully lead to the fact that we find our journey. If you look at what our journey is, Mario Draghi has been working on the drug report, which sets out a very clear guideline what needs to be done. But I think, where are the cracks today? The cracks are clearly on the execution side. We don't get our act together to execute this drug report and also to prioritize because, you can't do everything. And just to give you an example, when we talk about tariffs, my first instinct doesn't go to US tariffs. My instinct goes to internal tariffs because today for example, on goods within the European Union, we have barriers that are equal to between 40 and 60% tariffs. That's much lower than what anybody else has asked for. And so I think this work on our own complexity and simplifying our own way. I'll give you another example. The European Capital Market Union, a project that has been going on for 20 years. If you have a company and have a project for 20 years, you will probably never stay that long on a project. Or if you think about this, I would say obsession to always be in line with every of the 27 countries. Why not create smaller alliances and move ahead? Nobody said you must always be in agreement with the 27, so I think we will get there. I hope we'll get there fast enough.
I wanted to come to you next because actually I was as I was thinking about this panel, I mean, what you do through your investments and deployment of capital is chasing growth. This is like, you know, the purpose of Mubadala. So where do you see the most growth and what do you see some of the challenges? I know there's a big investment in the US that you've pledged. How do you think that?
Well, yes, we're in the business of looking for growth. And it starts I think for us it starts at home. We have in the UAE, a pretty interesting growth trajectory. The market, the UAE economy has been, I think, a wonderful story of diversification over the last 40 to 50 years, growing from 100 years ago, an economy that was built on essentially the pearl diving business. We then got into the oil and gas business over these last 40 to 50 years, diversified economy away from oil and gas, while using that resource to to fuel our economic growth, our investment, both in the UAE and globally. And now what we have is a very mature economy, a very diverse economy, built on the foundation of peace, prosperity and the pursuit of growth and development. And I think we're very good at that. In the UAE, we have a market of about 2 billion around us, from India to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa. That's our 2 billion. That's our market around us. We used to produce barrels of oil that were refined and then sold both as crude and product. Now we produce energy. We produce energy in every form, from oil to gas to solar to nuclear. And we do it at a at a very commercially economically viable cost. And now as we look at the future, our future is in the business of intelligence. As we look at this AI revolution, our businesses, how do we actually use our ability to produce energy economically, viably to build large scale projects to produce that next barrel of the future, which is that token of intelligence? That's essentially what we're doing right now. And in within that is a lot of growth in within that is a lot of investment, a lot of, economic activity. And in within that is partnership that creates opportunity for investment. West and our traditional markets like the United States, North America, Canada, where obviously these these are markets that we've been historically well vested in and we know how to invest in, and I think have done very well, and they fit very well. The space that matches, the sectors such as AI, such as technology, such as biotech, healthcare, etc., that we're focusing on, but also East Asia has been a very important, I think, avenue for growth. And as I, as I look at the future, as I look at the next five, ten years, there's no doubt in my mind I think growth will come in these markets, in Asia as we start preparing for, I think, another trajectory growth coming in in Africa. So I think we're well positioned for all of that. And sorry for the long winded answer.
No, but at least it's very complete. It frames perfectly what we'll continue to discuss. Ruth, how do you think AI is actually helping to fuel growth, and what's the opportunity for AI right now? I feel like the only optimism that's coming anywhere right now is actually on on AI with a couple of concerns, but AI on productivity and actually just fueling growth.
So we do think we're all privileged to be living in this time with AI because of the extraordinary upside. And it's not just economic growth estimated at 4 trillion added to GDP in the US, more than €1 trillion here in Europe. It's also the extraordinary opportunity to better deliver health care results, education to advance science, to fortify cybersecurity. And I think what's really important as each of us, public sector, private sector have gone on this journey is AI is clearly a lot more than a chatbot, and it cannot be about cost cutting. That is not about driving growth. What's extraordinary is when you take this technology and rethink the art of the possible. And one of the areas Mark and I are both focused on is a genetic AI. What does it mean when you can actually have personalized genetic AI serve customers in ways that you couldn't afford to do today? Because the cost of doing such is not scalable? We're doing we're seeing this across industries, and what it does is it changes the art of the possible. I can have a personalized relationship with you, a concierge, if I'm a retailer in a way I couldn't previously. We're seeing it with small businesses. Small businesses in Europe and the US is the majority of employment, the vast majority of job growth, and they are using AI in ways that enable them to have a scale and a throw weight that they otherwise wouldn't have, to better connect with customers to manage their supply chain, to think about inventory. That's what drives the growth. Rethinking that economics have changed so you can do things you couldn't previously do. I think that is important. When I go to the Global South, and what I hear from every head of state with whom I meet is I must be a part of this digital transformation, not just because of the economic upside, but because of the implications for health, education, crisis management. And just one story, I think captures it. I was with the Prime minister, Prime minister in Southeast Asia, who asked a very important question. Can this help me improve the lives for the lowest economic strata in our country? And that would be farmers. And the answer is yes, because what we are already seeing, and it is still early days, is we can help farmers pre-harvest thinking about infestation, other things to improve yield. We can also help them post-harvest getting to market. And we're already doing a pilot in India where we're seeing an economic uplift for farmers. So to me, what's important is the upside. And the challenge is ensuring that in the way we collectively execute the benefit is not just in the coastal elites or the major cities, but everyone, everywhere is seeing the economic uplift, the difference for their children, their families in education, in health care, in things that matter to them. But it is profound, and I think it's our responsibility to ensure that level of participation.
Mark, where do you see the biggest growth opportunity coming from?
Well, you know, I think this is these comments have been fantastic. First I mean from the US, you know, we're going to see some amazing growth this year. A lot of economists are saying 3 or 4%, I think some of these techno economists are saying it could go 5 or 6%. That would be absolutely amazing, especially in regards to this really low inflation that's happening right now. So that's record levels of growth for the United States. And a lot of it is being driven from exactly what we're talking about here, which is this incredible shift, you know, to AI. This is, you know, not just the technology of our lifetime. This is the technology of really any lifetime. And it's an amazing technology. It's a magical technology. It's it can do things for us personally and for our businesses and for our economies and for our productivity, unlike anything that we've ever seen. And as we've automated thousands and thousands of companies using this kind of next generation of technology, we call them large language models, which is this kind of the next iteration of artificial intelligence and the arc of innovation over 50 years of AI. I think we see things that are just awesome. But we should also talk about one critical thing, and that is we have seen things, especially this year, as these models have matured and become more integrated in society that are pretty dark and pretty horrible. And that is we saw models this year coach kids into suicide. There was a segment on 60 minutes not so long ago about a company called character AI in our industry in the United States, and their model was coaching these kids to take their lives. And that was something unlike I have ever seen with technology, maybe the darkest thing I've ever seen with technology. And, you know, I would say that we have to remember in regards to this technology that, you know, this technology, these large language models, they do they, they they sometimes, you know, you can read about people think that they're dealing with a human that's so incredibly responsive and interactive and but they're incredibly inaccurate. They hallucinate their there is no nobody has 100% accuracy. And they're very unwieldy in how they operate. In fact, most computer scientists don't even understand fully, you know, how they operate. They're not born. You know, they don't have childhood. They don't have friends. So therefore, in the computer science world, we say they don't have context. They don't have the ability to take their large language model and add the context into creating true intelligence. That's why it's kind of a simulated intelligence. You know, I myself, I consider myself to be a bit of a large language model. You know, I'm like an LLM. And when I'm talking to you, even right now, I'm like trying to put together the words, this word is now that word. Is it this word? And I'm like a large language model. But I was born in San Francisco. I, you know, grew up on the peninsula. I, you know, have a company, Salesforce. I have friends, you know, I do things in my life. That's my context. And I have not only context. I have a relationship with my creator. I have a relationship with my higher self. So these large language models don't have those other two pieces. And let me just finish this one thing. And the thing that's interesting about this is while we are ushering in this amazing opportunity for growth and we're seeing unbelievable growth, we have to bring in also an era of responsibility. We need to make sure that we are doing very much. What I see Doreen here from the ITU is in our audience. She calls it AI for good. We have to kind of invoke commissions and come together as teams and as companies and as an organizations and say, we're going to make sure that this technology doesn't impact our kids in a negative way, like we've seen social media do now for way too long. And things like section 230 in the United States need to be reshaped because these tech companies will not be held responsible for the damage that they are being. You know, basically doing to our families, just as the social media companies have not been held responsible for the damage that they did to the families because of section 230. And you know that, you know, you work for a media company. Bloomberg. I work for a I have a media company time we're held responsible for our work. You're held responsible for your work. These tech companies are not. So I think in the era of this incredible growth, we're drunk on the growth. It's awesome. But let's make sure that we use this moment also to remember that we're also about the values as well.
Minister. And then Ruth.
Yeah. Mark, this is really interesting because I think what a lot of countries, including Canada, has been, have been struggling with is our own sovereignty over, over social media, over, over tech in general. So how do you see the relationship between tech and governments, and how can we make sure, ultimately that we protect our kids, that we protect our, you know, the most vulnerable and at the same time that we protect democracy, at a time where basically a lot of these models. Well, AI will go and get its information through different types of sources, and depending on which type of sources can skew people towards, you know, basically what they think.
And adding to that, one of the barriers of growth that actually we've spoke to 10,000 businesses across the world. And one of the barriers to faster growth was, you know, regulation either outdated or too big Mark.
Well, the question that you're asking is very simple. What's more important to us growth or trust, but what's more important to US growth or our kids? What's more important to US growth or our families? Or what's more important, the growth or the fundamental values of our society? And we talk about the World Economic Forum. We talk about that. We're committed to improving the state of the world. We can we really focus on that. Business is the greatest platform for change. That's why we're here. But when we create technology that can fundamentally destroy the fabric of our society, that's the moment where we have to come in through our non-governmental organizations like the ITU, like the UN, like the Wecf, even, and say, or like our governments, like the Canadian government or the United States government, we have to come in and say, and by the way, these US tech companies, they hate regulation. Everybody knows that in this room, right? They hate regulation. We all agree, except for that one regulation section 230. They do.
Love that. I feel like Ruth has a right to reply here.
Look, I think what Mark is saying is critically important. There is downside to every technology. There is downside to technology as profound as AI, and there is substantial upside. And I remain confident that we can actually master both. If we at Google, what we talk about is the imperative to be bold and responsible. If we don't protect on the downside around kids, around jobs, around energy affordability, if we're not focused on those, and there are areas where absolutely regulation is needed to ensure we protect the most vulnerable, that we deal with things around energy affordability. If we don't, we shouldn't actually have the license to pursue the upside. And I will just say that the upside is more than about economic growth, which will pay for many things that it is easy to see when you don't need many things that society needs. And I will say that when I look at what matters and the opportunity to deliver for people, it goes right to your point, Mark. We need to be thinking about our kids and our families for generations to come. And one of the areas, as an example, why it is absolutely imperative and sacrosanct that we put in place the structures to protect from the downside. I'm going to give one that I'm so passionate about that you and I have talked about. It's about transforming what happens for all of us in health. You know, as a two time cancer survivor, I keep coming back to this. Mark has done so much for the hospital system in San Francisco. We can sit here today and say that cancer will be solved in our lifetime. Some will be eradicated, others, because of early detection and care, will be manageable. And as a cancer survivor, manageable is a gift. That is the word I want it. Those are the types of things that we are already seeing with AI. We are seeing things like nurses and doctors get 30% of their time back because they're not doing administrative drudgery. They're focused on the patient where my oncologist said, the only way that everyone, everywhere, regardless of your economic strata, can have a fair shot at early detection is with AI applied to radiology. I don't want to give up on those kinds of things, and the same in education and the same in small businesses. And so it's that duality that we have to get right. And I think if people don't appreciate the magnitude of the upside, they will retreat to because the concern is real. And that's why it's such a responsibility to deal with both.
I think what Ruth is saying is very true. And just to make one last point, but we can learn from what happened in social media. Of course, we can also learn. And I love your comment. When you ask, what can governments do? You can see that there are governments, not our government, but other governments that have now taken aggressive actions on social media. Kids cannot use social media under a certain age. That's a big step. But that's not that wasn't true ten years ago. It was only until we saw what could. What's that?
Things are changing.
Go ahead. Well, I think.
You know, there's been a real conversation about freedom of speech versus, you know, government over oversight. And we need to be able to say, well, this is these are our people, this is our country. And when you do business, even in the digital space, you have some norms to follow, because ultimately it's about protecting your people. And meanwhile, we believe in AI. We want to invest. And this is the social license to make sure that there's more adoption across the country. And it goes both, you know, it's basically hand in hand. And we have a new talent strategy. We want to we want to support much more AI adoption across across the board. We have cohere, which is a fantastic Canadian company that we will continue to scale and support. We need to make sure we're more efficient, etc. within government. People in turn will like it because it will help. Services like Ruth was saying will help cancer detection. I could go on and on and on, but we should not be thinking that it's one or the other. It needs to be both.
And we need to see whether we're talking about fast growth or actually inclusive growth as well. You gave us a great overview of some of what you were invested in, where you see growth, but in terms of industries driving growth over the next five years. I mean, we're hearing that it's a lot of of course, IT services AI, but it could also be accommodation, leisure services, advanced manufacturing. So how do you distribute that in terms of priorities, for example for investment and deployment of capital?
Okay. Well we the way we do it is I think we take a five year perspective. We used to we used to look at a ten year perspective in the good old days. I think now with AI, even five years is hard. So, today what I'm very interested at the moment is the intersection between AI and robotics and how robotics, once that kicks in, how that's going to impact, manufacturing, and industry. I think that looking at that from today's lens and with a 3 to 5 year trajectory, that gives us at least a directionally where, where we want to go and where we want to invest and how we want to invest. I think Ruth alluded to a very important space, which is, you know, life sciences, healthcare, biotech, etc. that space, the life changing impact that AI is going to have into that. And then de facto, the economic and growth trajectory that comes within that space is something that certainly we're spending a lot of time and focusing on and investing in globally. So that's another space that is wide. It's exciting. It's it's extremely I would say, you know, the benefits of it far outweigh it's just you can't look at it just from a financial perspective. It really has a profound human impact. And I think that's very exciting. I really love that space for every reason that we mentioned. But I think going back to some of the things we talked, we talked about here today, it's about a balancing act, the balancing act between growth, investment, development, the future, the beauty of this technology and on the other side, risks, regulation, controls and having that right balance, the challenge we all face, I think each of us here representing very different jurisdictions, is the technologists and the private sector. And business is much faster, so much faster than government. That's always going to be the case. And in the age of AI, multiply that by a multiple of ten x 50 x, maybe 100 x. So government has really no chance in catching up unless from the beginning government is going hand in hand in that journey. What we're attempting to do in the UAE at the moment is really making the entire country AI enabled. So when you go today, the UAE government is probably one of the most AI enabled governments in the world today as we speak. When it comes to regulation, we're trying our best to be as much as possible, can't stay ahead of the game, but close to the game, very close to it, and particularly on these very important matters such as safety, security and these guardrails that have to be put in place. Society, society. In the UAE today, we have the highest usage of AI per capita of any nation in the world, number one, the UAE. So as we go on this journey of investors such as ourselves, the enablement, the infrastructure side of it, the society, the government, all of that has to go hand in hand. And that's what we're trying to do in the UAE. And I think that's going to be a very interesting model to to follow for many countries.
Thomas, what about Europe? Where where do you see I know there's a, you know, competitiveness concern. There are a lot of people go back to the Draghi report saying we haven't done much or as much as we should have. Where do you see opportunity in Europe?
I think AI is a phenomenal opportunity for Europe because I mean, we have low growth. We have a massive competitive disadvantage relative to the US, and that's the way to use it. And, I hear everything you say about the dangers, and I'm the first person to say you have to be responsible around it. But I think there is a tech piece to AI, and there is a change leadership piece. And, it is our duty as company leaders, as politicians, to accompany our citizens in a responsible deployment of AI. And that's why when you think about where is the mix of AI projects today, for me, it's too much around the question of cost savings and not enough around growth. And, how can we imagine new models? I think that's the first topic. The second topic, I think in particular for Europe, AI is absolutely crucial, in the public space, going back to what Ruth was saying, if you look, 60% of the social expenditure of a government in Europe is social expenditure and a large part is health, the health expenditure grows three, four times the GDP. So it's not sustainable if you don't find a way of handling those health costs and prevention, in a more efficient way. And that's where AI plays a massive role, because we need to move away from a system where we just pay out the damage of yesterday and try to prevent the damage of tomorrow, and AI can help on it. So I think that's an absolutely crucial piece. And then there's the last element, which is the question around risk appetite. Europe is seen as, you know, a place where risk is something negative. And I think here we have a new tool, a new idea, that can really, get us onto a journey to dare again. Again in a framework of, very responsible deployment, but to try new things. So I'm very bullish, and Europe is not, I guess, a place where the LMS will be newly invented. Europe needs to be the place where AI needs to be implemented. And the model on Europe around, large social contract and large social values is actually very much focused and prone to that.
Minister, how do you also retrain? I mean, we need to talk about job losses a little bit. That can also come from a big rollout of AI. How should countries and governments think about retraining the population right now to make sure that no one is left behind?
Yes, of course, an AI adoption is extremely important. But I think that if my mom was listening to this because I don't think she's necessarily is right.
Now, she might be.
She might be, but she doesn't speak English. So, I think it's very vague. It's not concrete. If I can tell her, mom, when you go to the hospital, it will be quicker. You won't have to wait at the emergency or, you know, or if I'm able to say to my niece, well, you know, you will have a chance in your new job to do the most interesting part of the job, rather than the long research that maybe would have taken you a lot of time. But now you can be supported in doing that work and learning as well. Like there are many, many things, but we will have as governments and of course with industry to do a lot of work to explain to our population what we're talking about. And I know that's what Ruth was trying to do, but I think there's lots of fear towards AI. Mike alluded to it and Thomas just talked about it. I think the other part also, that we're not talking about the industrial development of AI is the affordability issue. And for us, it's really important we develop our grid at the same time as we're developing data centers. We cannot be developing so many data centers. And yes, indeed created so much growth. But electricity prices will peak. And then if you're getting a bill at the end of the month, that is twice used to be, you'll have a real reaction of people to.
AI and just in general towards governments. And the affordability conversation is one that is happening across democracies and across the world. So I think that's also a conversation that we absolutely need to have, because there is also a, you know, Thomas was referring to, you know, how can I say social pact in our democracies, we have one back home about the fact low electricity costs, which basically is part of the social safety net. We need to make sure we keep that.
And high costs of energy. Ruth, you know, energy and commodities, but also a lack of skilled workforce is one of the barriers. But Thomas, do you want to go in and then we'll get onto Thomas.
I want to reinforce what Melanie was saying, I think. And look, by profession, I look at a lot of risks. And we talk a lot about cyber risk, environmental risks, health risks and so on. I think the biggest risk we are the most underappreciated is the social risk, because everything we talk about will end in more inequality and will end in a more challenging social contract. So, sorting this out is not easy, but probably the most important thing we have to do.
Ruth. And then Mark.
So if I can build on Minister Jolie's comments and take you through a trip I recently had to West Memphis, Arkansas, when we were announcing the biggest investment in the state of Arkansas. And when we got through this, the nature of the approach, the minute the mayor of West Memphis got up and he actually had people in the room in tears because they addressed so much of what Minister Julie was talking about. We went in and we said, one of the most important things is we want to make sure that you have the skills and training for the jobs go. It has to be if it's not tangible for people in the heartland of America, across Europe, around the globe, the absence of information is filled with dirt. It always has been. It always will be. That's human nature. If we don't fill it in with tangible experiences, they will fear it. In terms of jobs, what we discuss there is it's not just that new jobs will be created, industries that we don't see. That's a trust me, it's a hard one to stomach. It's what all of us need to be focused on in creating. What's that next growth thing? Some jobs will be augmented. I already mentioned it with nurses. You'll get 30% time back. So then you can actually have a nurse there when you go into the hospital. Because we're freeing capacity. Nurses need augmentation to free themselves from the administrative drudgery that they don't want. But there's also a new set of jobs for which people need training, and we're doing a lot around that. I think it is our collective responsibility to train people for service jobs with AI. But there's another one that goes to your last point. There is a shortage of electricians in the United States and in Europe, I'm guessing probably in Canada as well, to build the infrastructure that's needed to unlock the upside from AI. And what is exciting is we also announced an electrician training program, had an electrician with us talking about why that's a great career. So we're giving people two career paths service jobs using AI and trades jobs. And there's in the United States, as an example, some estimate up to 500,000 shortage of electricians. This needs to be tangible that you're going to get a benefit in the heartland of every place. And then skilling is there's a multiple part to it, but we do need to take that on. And I think as much as Google's been focused on what we call our AI Opportunity fund and skilling, it's about us working together, public and private sector and scaling up. So there's a big umbrella under which we can all operate to scale it in a way that addresses anxiety, or you'll end up back in that absence of information is filled with dirt. What happens to my job? I think it's doable, but it is a public private sector combination, and it is real work around skilling, around creating new career jobs, around transitioning people. And most important, I think you said it perfectly. It needs to be tangible for everyone today in something that matters.
Mark, I'm going to put you on the spot. We have eight minutes and I'm going to ask you each actually in one minute and a half to answer these two questions. If you're a prime minister or president, if you're a head of state today, what's the one policy you'd put in place tomorrow to make sure that you see sustainable growth? And what would you study at university tomorrow to make sure you take advantage of that growth?
Well, I think that, you know, the number one thing we're doing at Salesforce is we're really getting humans and agents to work together. I think that that has been the most exciting thing. We helped build customer agents. We helped build employee agents. This week, we've been rolling out Slackbot to help the million businesses that use slack become more elevated using this technology. But in all cases, humans and agents are together. In no case have we seen that level of accuracy. So it's very important that we keep the human in the loop. It's very important that this we remain a humanistic human first technology, and we need to put those controls in place to protect our society, our families and our kids. I would start right there.
What would you study at university ethics.
In university? What I would do. Yeah, I think that, you know, I think the question that I asked, what's more important, trust or growth? You have to remember for me, I am a growth at all costs CEO. I over 26 years, we've grown the largest enterprise software company in the world, from zero to more than $41 billion this year, 80,000 employees. Because we're all about growth. And but we also believe that trust is our highest value. So that is, you know, when it gets right down to it, we always ask the question, what's more important, trust or growth?
Minister, your number one policy and what you'd study at, what you'd, you know, tell a student to study at university.
Well, I think, you know, as a government for us.
We look at everything, all the levers. I've talked to you about diversification. I've talked to you about like, real industrial policy on, you know, we're coming up with things on auto on the defence industrial strategy. We're looking at a new AI strategy, etc. but fundamentally, when we, you know, develop all these policies, we have to govern a nation and we have to bring people along, and we have that responsibility in a very turbulent and chaotic world right now, with a lot of anxiety, with a lot of frustration, where people think things are costing too much and so and they're fearful and are not necessarily trusting people, you know, necessarily at at this forum, there's a real issue of, of, of people being preoccupied, whether they're becoming powerless. So my point is, is it's giving this idea to people that we are in control, that we're dealing with things that in this chaos, we have a plan, that we have all the levers that will have an impact on their lives. And fundamentally, all the policies that I've talked to you about will create jobs, will be helping them to have access to better services, and ultimately also to a promise of themselves and their children to have access to a better life. It comes back to basics, but I think that's what we need to show concretely back home.
Thank you, Minister Thomas. One policy.
On the on the studying international relations. There seems to be a large potential when it comes when it comes to.
Good diplomats. We're looking for good diplomats. That right?
I think there are many. There are many.
There is. There is plenty of potential still, because we see that it's increasing every day on the reforms. Allow me two reforms. Number one, I would make opening a social media account as difficult as opening a bank account with the same KYC number. Two, I would privatize the health and retirement system in my country.
Clear and to the point Khaldun policy.
I would want every employee in my government to learn how to have an agent, and then to have four, and then to have ten, and then to have a billion. We want to be efficient and we want we want to use technology to its max, and we want to use our workforce in the most efficient and effective way. So I think that as a matter of policy, I think will serve us well. And I think as a matter in terms of, what would I, what.
Study at university.
Study university, you know, what? Philosophy and humanity.
Took mine.
All right. I'll take I'll take philosophy. I'll give it humanity.
What do you see as the biggest barrier right now to company growth and country growth? Is is it. Yeah. To me. Yeah.
So what do I see.
What do you see as the biggest barrier to sustainable growth that that companies are doing right now. What's holding some companies back.
I think it's it's culture I think it's it's a it's it's culture. It's listen, we're talking we spent 45 minutes talking about the future growth in AI. It's coming. There is no two ways to it. And, and we just have to be ready, prepared and make the best possible pathway to it. And companies, every company is, is impacted. And the barrier is the resistance. And the resistance within the culture of the companies goes from layer one, layer two, layer three. It's there and it's deeply embedded. And I think leaders, of of us corporations, ministries, etc., we have a responsibility to break that culture. And it's not easy. And I think that's the biggest barrier.
Yeah. Ruth.
So I'm going to assume that all the policies everybody else requested are implemented. And I get to build on it. And what I would say is to unlock the upside from AI, we need collectively the power to deliver it, the energy to deliver it. And so it's about ensuring energy infrastructure is built at an accelerated pace and protecting affordability. And that in many markets is about modernizing the grid that's here, building transmission. There are things that public policy can do to accelerate it, and affordability is absolutely critical at Google. What we'll do is we'll upfront capital so that utilities actually have the capital they need to build infrastructure, which means the ratepayers protect it. It caps rates for years to come. Those are the types of programs that we need to lock in so that we can build capacity with affordability rapidly. We have something else where we do in Energy affordability Fund, where we help Weatherize. fairly pardon.
Me and fairly.
Fairly, yes.
Global North. Global South.
No, I was, but I'm getting at what's the problem in America in Europe right now. So one is building out the infrastructure. But you're absolutely right. And then in terms of what study, it's a great privilege to work with a number of Nobel Prize winners. So Demis Hassabis, who won the Nobel for AlphaFold, which is what is going to help us all accelerate drug discovery? When asked the question actually said philosophers, we need more philosophers. He's been saying that for quite some time, so I will never contradict a Nobel Prize winner. I will say philosophers.
On that note, thank you so much to all of the panelists for a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much.