State of our world 2025

As the second quarter of the 21st century begins, the global economy and international order are undergoing so much transformation that some have stamped this era the Great Upheaval. Geopolitical headwinds, from wars to tariffs, are at their strongest in half a century, and nations have moved from a multilateral to a multipolar world order looking for more opportunities to redraw the future. At the same time, the workforce is shrinking as birth rates plummet and the senior population explodes. And then there's artificial intelligence, the hope of many businesses and nations for breaking our productivity plateau and driving new business and economic growth.

The Oliver Wyman Forum created the State Of Our World 2025 report as a discussion starter to help guide leaders through these turbulent and exhilarating times. In a world of information overload, this collection of infographics and stories seeks to call out signal from the noise on some of the most important global trends impacting business today. Some topics, like geopolitics, regulation, and AI, are of critical concern for most leaders today. Others, like changing demographics and workers, are long-term issues that require planning and attention now. Still others, such as energy and climate, are too big for a single chapter and will get their own deep dive in the next publication.

Together, these multidecade trends are quickly creating opportunities for business leaders, policymakers, and regulators to redefine the world as we know it. In the business landscape there is a tremendous amount of optimism — reflected in the bullishness of American equity markets, but also globally with the possibilities of new winners taking the stage.

By understanding these dynamics and putting them in proper context, leaders can better anticipate challenges, seize opportunities, and position their organizations for success. We hope you enjoy our “lightest heavy read” combining infographics and short essays in the pages that follow.

 

We live in a world of accelerating change and disruption across so many dimensions: escalating conflict and geopolitical realignment, the power of artificial intelligence, climate change, increasing social polarization, fast-changing consumer preferences, and on and on. It would take volumes to capture the full landscape of issues that challenge today's political and business leaders, which probably explains why so many of our institutions are struggling to keep up on some fronts.

With that in mind, we took a much more focused approach with this State Of Our World report. We wanted to create the lightest heavy read possible for CEOs and senior executives, prioritizing issues where business leaders have direct agency to make strategic choices in the next 12 to 24 months. We focused in particular on interconnected risks and topics, such as the way that supply chain rewiring needs to take account of resource scarcity and climate adaptation, and how rapidly slowing demographic growth demands new economic growth models for companies and countries, and new approaches to migration pressures.

And because we really mean the lightest heavy read, we optimized for topics that could be meaningfully addressed in a broadsheet newspaper format, and emphasized insightful, fact-filled infographics as much as concise prose.

We hope this report provides valuable perspectives to you and your teams, and look forward to discussing these and other issues with you in the months ahead.

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State Of Our World