Global central bankers and economists have warned that the AI boom could pose a growing threat to financial stability if investor expectations, debt-funded spending and job market disruption move faster than regulators can respond.

The concerns come as technology giants and AI infrastructure players pour billions of dollars into data centres, chips and cloud capacity, while investors continue to chase AI-linked stocks, bonds and venture capital deals.

At the European Central Bank’s annual forum in Sintra, Portugal, Tobias Adrian, director of the International Monetary Fund’s monetary and capital markets department, warned that leverage was building on both sides of the AI trade.

“What worries me the most is there’s leverage by the borrowers and there’s leverage by the investors,” Adrian said. “The leverage on both sides is very worrisome for financial stability.”

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem compared the current market excitement to earlier technology booms, saying the internet ultimately exceeded expectations but still produced the dot-com bubble.

Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok said both a successful and disappointing AI rollout could hurt the economy. If AI delivers major efficiency gains, it could replace jobs and dent consumer spending. If it disappoints, today’s massive investments may fail to generate the profits needed to justify them.

The Bank for International Settlements has also warned that a reversal in AI-related spending could drag some economies into recession.

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However, OpenAI chief economist Ronnie Chatterji (pictured) pushed back against claims that AI would make human workers redundant, arguing that exposure to AI does not automatically mean substitution.

“Just because a task is exposed to AI doesn’t mean it’s going to substitute for that,” Chatterji said.

Cybersecurity was another major concern, with Bank of England Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden warning that AI models are already uncovering vulnerabilities that companies may struggle to patch quickly.

ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel said a cyberattack on a major cloud provider could potentially hit multiple financial institutions at once.