Generative AI (Gen AI) could boost Belgium's economy by up to €50 billion over the next decade, according to a report by Implement Consulting Group commissioned by internet giant Google.
According to the report, if Belgium's industry moves towards large-scale adoption of Gen AI technologies in different forms and across different sectors, the country's GDP could increase by 9% overall over the next 10 years.
Most of that added value will come from massive productivity gains: One of the main attractions of Gen AI tools is that they can free workers from menial, repetitive tasks, freeing them up to rehire large numbers of workers to focus on more value-adding tasks, which alone could translate into an increase of 10 to 12 billion euros.
Source: Implement Consulting Group
In recent years, Gen AI has been popularized by highly popular and widely used publicly available tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E. But beyond just creating images, the technology is also used in many valuable business use cases, such as powering chatbots, organizing and summarizing vast amounts of documents, and more.
Belgium's productivity gains from Gen AI could be equivalent to around 1.6% of the country's GDP per year. In fact, the potential for Belgium's future economic growth linked to Gen AI has led the bank to raise its growth forecast for the country.
According to the survey, the main areas where new generation AI will bring about major changes are IT, business services and real estate. As for the public sector, the technology is also expected to have a major impact on areas such as public administration, education and healthcare.
Source: Implement Consulting Group
Job market
Of the huge number of jobs that will be affected by the introduction of Gen AI in Belgium, 64% (3.2 million jobs) will be powered by the technology, and employees are likely to start using it in their daily work, tackling complex problems and creating text, code and images.
But not all jobs will be affected. About 29% of jobs are predicted to be completely unaffected by Gen AI. Most of these are manual or human-intensive jobs. The report notes that only about 7% of jobs will actually be replaced by Gen AI, and many of those will likely require reemployment.
Source: Implement Consulting Group
“Generative AI will boost global economic growth over the next decade,” said Martin Terre, partner at Implement Consulting Group. “It can boost productivity and make Belgium more competitive. To capture the next wave of AI benefits across society, Belgium needs to foster innovation, invest in skills and ensure clear rules.”
A previous report by Implement Consulting Group said Gen AI technology could boost the Dutch economy by around €85 billion over the next decade, putting the relative impact on a par with that of neighbouring Belgium.
AI technology is quickly becoming a key innovation for many industries. The race to adopt AI is on, but there is also hesitation due to the expected impact of looming new regulations, such as the EU AI Act and the US AI Bill of Rights.
