The International Monetary Fund projects global growth of 3.1% in 2026 and 3.4% in 2027. It expects inflation to reach 4.7% this year, largely because of higher energy and food prices, and says economic performance is becoming increasingly uneven across countries.
The IMF says economies benefiting from the AI investment boom or favorable terms of trade are performing better than many energy-importing and lower-income countries. Reuters reported that the 2026 estimate is a slight increase from the IMF’s 3.0% July projection, as strong AI infrastructure investment partly offsets pressure from higher oil prices.
The report also describes conditional downside scenarios. A steep fall in AI investment could reduce global output by 1.1% by 2028, while a prolonged Middle East war that kept oil above $130 through the first quarter of 2027 could cut next year’s growth by half a percentage point. Those are stress scenarios, not the IMF’s baseline forecast.