WASHINGTON – International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva said that after facing crisis upon crisis in recent years, the world needs to build foundations that can withstand shocks that have become more frequent. “I am worried that we are not completely internalising yet that this is how the world is going to be,” Georgieva said on Bloomberg’s podcast Leaders with Francine Lacqua. “We are not going to get to a place where shocks are gone.”Georgieva, who’s been at the helm of the Washington-based lender since 2019, has been through the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the tariffs turmoil and now the conflict in the Middle East. The IMF has a lending capacity of just under US$1 trillion (S$1.3 trillion) and her job – as she described it – is keeping the fund’s 191 members focused on working together for the greater good of the world economy.“The best ammunition we have is objective analysis,” she said.One major transformation underway is the spread of AI and its impact on labour markets and local economies. Georgieva said organisations including hers failed to recognize inequalities arising from globalisation and she wants to make sure it won’t happen with AI. “We collectively, including the fund, did not appreciate the backlash against globalisation that came from the fact that, yes, the world economy is doing better as a whole, but many communities were hollowed out because their jobs disappeared and there was not enough attention to them,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I’m very keen not to see repeated is the same with artificial intelligence.”The fund will update its outlook for the global economy in July, after downgrading its growth projection for the year in April amid the war in the Middle East. BLOOMBERG