The global financial system has oiled the engine of growth and prosperity, lifting more than a billion people out of poverty since 1990. Integration of the financial system was a critical ingredient in brewing this success, enabling commerce to cross borders and organisations to scale beyond the physical boundaries of their country of origin. 2025 presents a different outlook, with tariffs and threats to security increasing frictions in cross-border transactions, even as we see meaningful momentum accelerating adoption of new technologies.
We ask the questions:
As solutions supported by AI agents begin to pervade, will we be using or losing agency? How do we ensure a global user pool is equipped to engage with these agents safely?
As the world continues to experience the predicted outcomes of climate change, with US$320bn of losses caused by natural disasters in 2024, how might techno-optimists continue to support innovation that takes a lower toll on long term prosperity?
What tools may exist that support sustainable innovation and growth in the face of increasing regulatory complexity and fragmentation? Programmable compliance, verified data and regulated digital assets have the potential to bridge fragmentation through interoperability, but what conditions are necessary to enable this?
This roundtable examines the interplay of these drivers of change and aims to begin the work of developing an approach for sustainable innovation to thrive.
Defrag: Sustainable AI Innovation in a Fragmented Financial System
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