The World Bank's World Development Report 2026: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence, published in August, has drawn renewed attention after Paschal Donohoe, the bank's chief knowledge officer, told the Guardian that compact, locally adapted AI models could accelerate development in emerging economies from a process that once took centuries into one that takes decades.
At the heart of the report's prescription is what the bank calls "small AI" specialised models trained on narrower datasets for a specific purpose which Donohoe said would operate in local languages on mobile phones with low connectivity.
The report's key findings highlight that developing countries do not need to build trillion-dollar, all-purpose models to benefit from AI, but importing AI tools is also not enough countries must adapt AI to local languages, institutions, data, and development needs.
India features prominently as both a beneficiary and a cautionary case. AI weather forecasts produced savings of as much as $560 per small farmer in the state of Telangana. Donohoe cited farmers on the World Bank's AgriConnect scheme, who needed soil analysis in their own languages and for whom scientists and agricultural experts would be insufficient making small AI on mobile phones a potential solution.
On jobs, the report's findings cut both ways. Just over 4% of Indian jobs face immediate automation risk, compared with over one-third in advanced economies, while entry-level BPO job postings in South Asia have fallen by about 20%. AI-related hiring in India has been linked to declines in job postings and wage offers for non-AI roles within firms, with effects most pronounced in managerial and professional occupations.
The report also highlights India's net loss of 200 elite AI researchers and inventors between 2011 and 2024, even though the country held the world's second-largest AI talent pool of approximately 50,460 professionals in 2025.
To seize AI's potential, governments will need to keep strengthening electricity, internet connectivity, and foundational skills, as well as access to compute infrastructure and local language data. The report reveals that only one of 25 low-income economies has an active national AI strategy, highlighting significant disparities in institutional readiness.
Source : World Bank
