Artificial intelligence could boost the value of cross-border flows of goods and services by nearly 40% by 2040 thanks to productivity gains and lower trade costs, a report by the World Trade Organization (WTO) has found.
The 2025 World Trade Report suggests AI could lead to “significant increases in trade and GDP by 2040”, with global trade projected to rise by 34-37%, depending on different degrees of policy and technological catch-up between global economies.
Meanwhile, global GDP could see a 12-13% increase across different scenarios, as per WTO estimates.
However, the flagship publication, which was launched on 17 September at the annual WTO Public Forum in Switzerland, argues that global businesses need “policies… to be in place to bridge the digital divide, invest in workforce skills, and maintain an open and predictable trading environment” in order for benefits to be shared widely.
“AI could be a bright spot for trade in an increasingly complex trading environment – it offers new opportunities to reduce trade costs, boost productivity, and expand participation in global markets,” said WTO deputy director-general Johanna Hill at a media briefing ahead of the launch.
“Trade itself can be a powerful enabler for an inclusive AI transformation,” she added, with estimates showing global trade in AI-enabling goods – including raw materials, semiconductors and intermediate inputs – totalled US$2.3tn in 2023.
“However, the transformative potential of AI is not guaranteed for everyone alike,” Hill warned.
Unequal access to digital infrastructure, skills and hardware risks “deepening divides”, she said.
AI’s potential benefits on trade and growth could only happen “if we act deliberately, by closing digital divides, investing in education and training and deploying appropriate labour adjustment policies, and maintain an open and predictable trading environment”, Hill said.
Business adoption
A WTO-International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) survey of 158 businesses across major global regions, which will be published in full later in 2025, has found that 90% of firms already using AI report tangible benefits in trade-related operations.
One in seven businesses anticipate significant AI-driven trade cost savings, particularly across areas like logistics and communication.
The WTO-ICC survey finds that the finance and insurance sectors are well placed to benefit, given more than 50% of companies were now using AI in their trade activities.
The most commonly cited benefit is improved trade efficiency (22%), followed by optimised trade decision-making (14%), expanding the foreign customer base (10%), enhanced supply chain management (9%), and broader import and export product ranges (9% and 8% respectively).
Larger firms primarily use AI for compliance with trade regulations, contract analysis and trade finance, it adds. Smaller firms tend to focus on market intelligence and improving communication.
Trade finance implications
The World Trade Report also highlights that “digital trade finance platforms are leveraging AI to assess credit risks more accurately, thereby helping small businesses gain access to capital that was previously out of reach”.
In terms of costs-slashing, MSMEs showed “greater optimism” than larger companies, which “may reflect the relatively larger gains that smaller firms expect to achieve from AI, given their limited resources to manage trade-related costs”, the report notes.
Report coordinator and chief of WTO’s digital trade and frontier technologies section, Emmanuelle Ganne, added: “AI can reduce a number of hidden costs, such as logistics costs, it can break down language barriers, it can improve search and match costs, it can make regulatory checks or compliance checks easier… So there are a number of trade costs that are directly impacted.”
AI could also become more affordable over time, WTO’s Hill and Ganne said. However, the trade of materials linked to its production is still exposed to tariffs and other geopolitical issues, they warned.
Access to AI-enabling goods such as raw materials and semiconductors remains uneven, with bound tariffs reaching up to 45% in some low-income economies, Hill noted.
AI-related trade measures are therefore becoming an emerging concern among WTO members, with the report highlighting that 80 AI-specific trade concerns have been raised so far.
