The Rise of Artificial Intelligence: A New Economic Reality
At Davos this year, artificial intelligence (AI) was not discussed as a distant promise or just one option among many in strategic roadmaps. It has become a real economic fact, a central variable already at work in growth forecasts, financial market arbitrage, productivity assumptions, and competitive strength. The message is clear: AI has moved from the realm of anticipation to that of dependence and interplanetary power struggles.
Like the internet before it, like electricity or the printing press in their time, AI does not just optimize what exists. It changes the scale, moves the lines, and multiplies a fundamental human capacity. Electricity mechanized physical work, the internet accelerated the circulation of information; AI, on the other hand, acts on the very heart of decision-making. It amplifies cognition. And it is precisely for this reason that it can no longer be treated as just a simple software tool. General-purpose technologies shape entire economies, create new jobs, redesign value chains, and capture a significant share of GDP over time. AI now belongs to this category. It has become an economic, organizational, and highly geopolitical subject, much more than a technological debate.
At Davos, Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, summed it up bluntly: what AI is capable of doing today far exceeds what companies can actually deploy. The intelligence of models is progressing at an exponential rate, doubling every few months. The gap between theoretical potential and operational reality is widening. And with it, a certainty: jobs will mutate. Deeply. A recent McKinsey study confirms this. AI agents are first deployed where information is the product: technology, media, telecommunications, health. Where processes are already digitized, interconnected, and equipped. In contrast, in more "physical" sectors such as industry, logistics, and field operations, AI is advancing, but at a pace constrained by data quality, system integration, and security requirements. This is not a uniform race. It is a metamorphosis at multiple speeds.
In companies, change does not always take the spectacular form of layoffs. It is more silent, more diffuse. Recruitment slows down. Junior positions become scarce. AI gradually absorbs the marginal growth of the workload. In parallel, new roles are emerging: data engineers, ML engineers, AI product owners, compliance experts, data architects, and prompt specialists. AI is designed to enhance capabilities, not to massively eliminate jobs, but it profoundly recomposes the structure of work.
At the macroeconomic level, landmarks are wavering. We are entering an unprecedented model where some economies may experience growth without proportional job creation. For AI's productivity gains to truly irrigate GDP and society, value cannot remain concentrated in a few tech companies. The credibility of AI will be played out elsewhere: in healthcare, education, manufacturing, and public services. Where it concretely improves results, and not just margins. On the ground, experts are unanimous: the organizational transformation necessary to integrate AI is slow. It will take years.
And paradoxically, this slowness is an opportunity. Brutal automation, without requalification or safety nets, would pose a major social risk. This long time is even more crucial for Tunisian SMEs, often under-capitalized, under pressure from cash flow, facing heavy taxation, and a constraining regulatory environment. For them, AI is not just a technological challenge, it is a strategic survival challenge. This inevitable transition requires method, governance, and support.
It is precisely the ambition of this issue of Managers to go beyond the speeches. To provide concrete keys to structure the adoption of AI, install clear governance, avoid the chaos of dispersed uses, and transform a constraint into a value creation lever. Because, at the end of the day, AI is neither a magic wand nor an abstract threat. It is a revealer of maturity. Of governance. Of managerial vision.
And like any fundamental transformation, it cannot be decreed. It must be piloted. The guest of this issue is an illustration of this. From the creation of his company, Souhail Manai, CEO of OLEA Tunisia, understood that value does not reside in the technology itself, but in what it enables: more availability, more speed and agility, and more quality of service. Discreet, structuring, he knew how to align and deploy a clear vision and strategic instruments to match this ambition.
