Your 2026 Global Economic Outlook calls this year “far from average,” even though the headline forecast looks steady. What’s the big idea?
At first glance, 2026 looks pretty typical. We’re forecasting global GDP growth of 2.7%, which matches the pace of recent years. Inflation is cooling in many places. Consumers are still spending. Businesses are starting to invest again.
But don’t confuse steady top-line growth with a steady economic structure. Beneath the surface of stable GDP growth, the global economy is being fundamentally rebuilt by AI, new trade patterns and digital innovation.
We’re also moving from a period of episodic shocks to more of a persistent disruption that will create a wider divergence across countries, regions, and in some cases, industries.
What’s going on with inflation and how can consumers and businesses “find a way” to adapt?
Global inflation is expected to ease again this year, falling from 3.4% in 2025 to 3.1% in 2026, driven in part by lower Chinese goods prices moving through global supply chains. For consumers outside the U.S., where inflation remains comparatively elevated, this could bring additional relief.
In the U.S., we're starting to see tariffs become less of an issue. I'm not saying they’ve disappeared, but both consumers and businesses have found a way to manage: they’re shopping differently, shifting sourcing, and adjusting their behavior.
It’s important to remember that the CPI is a fixed basket of goods. It measures the price of things in aggregate. But that’s not always what people actually buy. Consumers are adapting. They’re sorting by price, substituting toward cheaper items, changing brands, changing merchants – behaving differently because technology makes comparison easier than ever.
Businesses do the same thing. They shift supply chains, revisit pricing and distribution, and redesign sourcing models. In Canada, for example, the nominal dutiable rate might be 35%, but what gets collected is often much lower because firms reorganize around the incentives. Those adjustments matter for what inflation ultimately feels like on the ground.
What are the economic forces shaping 2026?
Our 2026 Global Economic Outlook identified five major ones.
- Consumer resilience. Consumers have held up better than expected. Real consumer spending growth is still solid – 2.4% globally in 2026, moderating from 2025 levels but still strong enough to anchor global growth.
- Business investment. As consumption cools, investment becomes more important, particularly in AI infrastructure and as businesses operate with greater policy clarity.
- Trade fragmentation. Companies are rebuilding supply chains to reduce risk and broaden supplier bases. We’re also seeing more intra‑regional trade as supply chains diversify.
- Generative AI. AI remains the defining force of this era. Adoption is still early, but it’s expanding quickly across regions. Small businesses are now outpacing consumers in using GenAI tools and competing more effectively.
- Workforce agility. AI and digital tools are helping firms do more with existing workforces and scale efficiently in a shifting labor environment.
There’s a lot of excitement about massive AI investments. What will determine whether it all pays off?
One thing to watch is the speed at which small businesses embrace the technology. Across the globe we are seeing small businesses adopting AI at a higher rate than consumers.
Another factor is moving beyond basic use cases. Creating meeting summaries and article digests is helpful, but the real question is: What do you do with the time you saved? At Visa, we’re focused on helping consumers and businesses turn AI outputs into real actions, including through the evolution toward agentic commerce.
The harder part, and the part that takes time, is system redesign. Companies should rethink processes end‑to‑end before AI can deliver its full value. That’s where we are today: early in the learning curve, at the very bottom of the ramp-up.
What makes your team’s analysis different from typical economic analysis, and how does it help clients?
At Visa Business and Economic Insights we focus on connecting what’s happening in the economy to what businesses and policymakers should act on right now.
Our advantage is combining economic modeling with real-world spending signals drawn from Visa’s anonymized, proprietary global data. That helps us separate noise from signal, country by country, sector by sector, especially when top-line numbers look steady but the underlying dynamics are shifting fast.
Then we take it a step further: What should a client do about it?
That can mean stress-testing demand, evaluating new markets, understanding customer segments, or rethinking strategy. The value is in the forecast and in the insight into what’s changing and how leaders can position themselves.
For business leaders, what’s the single most important takeaway from the 2026 Outlook?
Agility will be the differentiator.
Organizations that combine timely insights with the ability to adapt quickly, whether in supply chains, technology adoption, or payment infrastructure, will be well-positioned to thrive.
We’re in a period of deep economic transformation. As the year unfolds, our team will continue helping organizations build the adaptive capacity needed to weather uncertainty and to capture the opportunities it creates.