AI, Capitalism, and the Race for Inclusion
November 18, 2025
AI’s transformative potential presents both an urgent challenge and an extraordinary opportunity for capitalism. That was the focus of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism’s Climate Week roundtable, which I co-hosted with World Bank President Ajay Banga and Bank of America Chair & CEO Brian Moynihan. We brought together leaders from business, finance, labor, academia, and civil society to address how AI’s productivity gains can translate into opportunity and fairness for workers and communities.
Capitalism’s most urgent question—how to be fair to working people—has only grown sharper. I believe AI presents an opportunity for root and branch reform of capitalism. It holds immense promise for shared prosperity—but unmanaged, it risks deepening the inequalities already fracturing our social contract.
The same underlying idea—how we ensure economic progress benefits more people—was also central to the CNN Global Perspectives on Africa summit, where Tony Elumelu, Chairman of the United Bank for Africa, and I discussed the private sector’s responsibility to expand opportunity and direct technological progress toward the common good. The future of capitalism must be one that works for more people in more places, and emerging markets are adapting in ways that offer lessons for building a more resilient and equitable future.
“Capitalism only works if it works for everyone, which makes it our obligation to push it to be better.” – Darren Walker on Inclusive Capitalism in his book The Idea of America (2025)
If we act together with courage and purpose, AI’s transformative potential can enhance the workforce, expand opportunity and extend more benefits of capitalism to communities everywhere.
In his farewell message from the Ford Foundation, my dear friend Darren Walker urged us to build longer bridges rather than higher walls and to choose courage over despair—to lean in at this defining moment, not hunker down.
This is precisely the work before us with AI: reaching across divides to ensure technology enhances opportunity for all, not just the privileged few.
Lynn Forester de Rothschild
Founder and CEO
