AI in Strategic Foresight: Reshaping Anticipatory Governance

The report examines the integration of AI into strategic foresight, finding that while a majority of practitioners use AI to increase efficiency in trend analysis and scenario development, significant gaps in technical skills and ethical governance persist, particularly in the public sector.

• A global survey of 167 foresight experts from 55 countries indicates that two-thirds of practitioners already integrate AI into their work, primarily for trend analysis or clustering (69%), scenario development (63%), and horizon scanning (60%).
• There is a significant disparity in AI skill confidence across sectors; 93% of private sector respondents feel they have the relevant skills for AI in foresight, compared to only 53% in the public sector, 57% in civil society, and 59% in academia.
• Practitioners use AI at three levels of maturity: basic analysis augmentation for research synthesis, as a creative sparring partner for idea generation and stress-testing, and a rare third level where AI is fully integrated and customized into the entire foresight workflow.
• The primary benefit of AI in this field is time efficiency and acceleration (cited by 39%), as it handles repetitive, labour-intensive tasks, allowing experts to focus on higher-level analysis and critical thinking.
• Significant concerns exist regarding the reliability of AI outputs, specifically regarding hallucinations, lack of transparency, and a limited capacity for inductive reasoning, which hinders the ability to identify low-probability signals and disruptions.
• Ethical governance is lagging behind adoption; only 27% of experts using AI report that their organizations have formal ethical guidelines in place.

APA

World Economic Forum (2025). AI in Strategic Foresight: Reshaping Anticipatory Governance. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_AI_in_Strategic_Foresight_2025.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. AI in Strategic Foresight: Reshaping Anticipatory Governance. 2025. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_AI_in_Strategic_Foresight_2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=AI in Strategic Foresight: Reshaping Anticipatory Governance |date=November 2025 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_AI_in_Strategic_Foresight_2025.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2025strategic, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{AI in Strategic Foresight: Reshaping Anticipatory Governance}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2025}, month = nov, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_AI_in_Strategic_Foresight_2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }