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It’s that time of year again when thousands of leading global figures from politics and business (and the occasional celebrity) have made their way to a small town in the Swiss Alps for the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Given the seemingly endless conversation around AI, it’s no surprise that theme of Davos for 2025 was ‘Collaboration for the Intelligent Age’. Day one was unsurprisingly dominated by discussions of events across the Pond and the start of ‘Trump 2.0.’

Indeed, much of the mainstream media did not even acknowledge the Monday as the official start of the event, instead reporting on Tuesday as the first ‘official’ day when things really kicked into gear.

On the Tuesday, there was a flurry of keynote speeches from world leaders including China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang. He focused much of his time on stage to warn attendees AI could pose significant risks without global governance, while also seeking to play down talk of a ‘trade war’ with the US in light of some of President Trump’s rhetoric at his inauguration the day prior.

In fact, the talk at Davos on the Tuesday was largely made up of responses to President Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement. Several European leaders reaffirmed their commitment to solidarity with the agreement, while President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, insisted that “The Paris Agreement continues to be the best hope for all humanity.”

Several business leaders meanwhile took the opportunity to tout the potential of AI across interviews and panel discussions on the Wednesday. This included the CEO of French AI firm Mistral, Arthur Mensch, who predicted a race among global governments to lead the way in AI. Mensch also revealed that the company is in the process of gearing up for IPO and is not for sale.

Meanwhile, UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves spoke in a Bloomberg session about the UK government’s commitment to create more visas for skilled workers in areas including AI and life sciences as part of an overarching goal to attract global talent to the UK. Wednesday also saw Elon Musk compared to Albert Einstein by JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, who told CNBC that they had “hugged it out” in reference to their previously frosty relationship.

Talk around AI continued unabated on the Thursday at Davos, with even the Pope getting involved in discussions. Pope Francis issued a warning via a special message to the World Economic Forum, urging those in positions of power at the conference to “exercise due diligence and vigilance” around the use of AI technologies.

President Trump also addressed AI on Thursday, reminding attendees via video link of the $500bn Stargate AI project he announced earlier in the week involving OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank; described in some quarters as “an effort to make humanity obsolete.”

Trump was also very keen to stress that his return to the White House signalled the start of a “golden age of America”, which apparently drew loud laughs from some at the back of the hall as reported by The Guardian. Unperturbed, Trump reiterated his criticism for the EU saying it continues to treat the US badly and that their trade relationship is unequal. He spoke at length about imposing tariffs against both allies and competitors for not manufacturing products in the US moving forward.

So as the dust settles and private jets queue for Swiss airspace, perhaps there is no better place to finish this Davos 2025 round up then to note the AI (of course) powered digital assistant within the WEF app reportedly accessible to all attendees. The app is said to have studied the sessions attended by delegates through the week and made recommendations on future sessions based on these choices.

Such is the apparent success of the AI agent, one CEO present reportedly revealed enthusiastically: “I was out on the Promenade at 2am and I’d had seven drinks and the agent which had studied all my previous Davos visits said ‘Stop’ and sent me to bed. So thank you very much.”

James Meredith

James is a Director at Liberty Communications

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