América Latina na Era Inteligente: Um Novo Caminho para o Crescimento

The report argues that Latin America can overcome historical productivity stagnation by leveraging AI, which could add between US$ 1.1 and 1.7 trillion annually to the regional economy. While adoption is growing in sectors like customer service and software engineering, the report finds that only 6% of regional organizations are creating significant economic value from AI. Key barriers include a critical shortage of specialized talent, fragmented regulation, and a persistent urban-rural connectivity divide. The document outlines a strategic framework based on the World Economic Forum's Blueprint for Intelligent Economies, recommending focused investments in strategic sectors such as agriculture and mining, the development of sovereign LLMs, and increased regional collaboration to harmonize digital infrastructure and ethical standards.

• AI has the potential to significantly boost Latin American productivity, which has historically lagged behind global averages, with a projected annual productivity increase of 1.9% to 2.3% by 2030.
• The total annual economic value AI could contribute to Latin America is estimated between US$ 1.1 trillion and US$ 1.7 trillion, with analytical AI expected to provide 60% of this value (US$ 0.6 to 1 trillion) and generative AI providing the remainder (US$ 0.5 to 0.7 trillion).
• Despite increasing adoption, actual economic value capture remains very low; only 23% of Latin American organizations generate some economic value from AI, and only 6% report significant value creation.
• Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) face a significant AI gap, with 59% reporting no measurable value generation from AI, which threatens to widen the existing productivity gap between SMEs and large companies in major economies like Brazil (46%) and Mexico (53%).
• Talent availability is a primary barrier to AI transformation, exacerbated by a mismatch between educational curricula and industry needs, as well as competition from multinational technology centers and increased emigration.
• Infrastructure progress is uneven; while Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay have clean energy sectors to support data centers, a severe urban-rural connectivity divide exists, with a 30-percentage-point difference in fixed internet access between rural (42%) and urban (74%) households.
• The region is under-invested in AI relative to its global economic weight, representing only 1.6% of global AI investment despite accounting for nearly 6.3% of global GDP.
• Regulatory environments are perceived as unclear by 58% of regional leaders, with privacy and data protection cited as the main bottleneck for AI adoption and scaling.
• Latin America can build a sustainable competitive advantage by applying AI to sectors where it has a global lead, specifically agriculture, mining, energy, and tourism.

APA

World Economic Forum (2026). América Latina na Era Inteligente: Um Novo Caminho para o Crescimento. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Latin_America_Intelligent_Age_PTBR.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. América Latina na Era Inteligente: Um Novo Caminho para o Crescimento. 2026. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Latin_America_Intelligent_Age_PTBR.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=América Latina na Era Inteligente: Um Novo Caminho para o Crescimento |date=January 2026 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Latin_America_Intelligent_Age_PTBR.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2026amrica, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{América Latina na Era Inteligente: Um Novo Caminho para o Crescimento}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2026}, month = jan, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Latin_America_Intelligent_Age_PTBR.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }