AI 2027 and AI 2040 forecasts highlight rising AI-risk attention and major gaps

AI 2027 predicted that by late 2026 Congress would begin paying serious attention to the threat of AI. It also predicts a 10,000-person anti-AI protest by the end of the year; a protest in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, drew about 150 people, leaving the forecast’s outcome uncertain. A substantial press cycle around congressional attention to AI risk is already underway.

The AI 2027 and AI 2040 scenarios offer detailed predictions about agentic capabilities, computing resources and laboratory revenue, but are described as too vague about impacts beyond the AI industry. They provide fewer projections for GDP, employment, actual usage, practical usefulness and the diffusion of the technology.