The Challenges Posed by AI from the Perspective of the Central Bank

Denis Beau: The challenges posed by AI from the perspective of the central bank

Speech by Mr Denis Beau, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of France, at an event organised by the Institut d'Administration des Entreprises, Brest, 2 April 2026.

Central bank speech | 20 April 2026 by Denis Beau PDF full text (2,736kb) | 12
pages Ladies and gentlemen, dear students,

I would first like to thank the organisers from the Institut d'Administration des Entreprises in Brest for inviting me to open this event dedicated to artificial intelligence and its challenges. I would like to present the challenges from the perspective of a central bank such as the Banque de France, an independent public institution with nearly 9,000 employees, a member of the Eurosystem and the Single Supervisory Mechanism for European banks, whose objectives are to ensure monetary stability, financial stability and to provide services to the economy and society

For the Banque de France, AI affects both its objectives and the management of the resources it deploys to achieve them; I would therefore like to outline, in turn, the challenges the Bank faces due to these two types of impact.

1 - In order to ensure price stability, the Banque de France, together with the other central banks of the Eurosystem, needs to understand and assess the spread of AI throughout the economy and its impact. Indeed, we closely monitor all developments that could influence the economic outlook for the coming years, as well as prices. As regards the impact of AI on GDP – although it is difficult to assess as it operates through a number of different channels on both the demand and supply sides, and is hard to quantify – I draw the following three conclusions from recent data and research:

• Its immediate impact on investment is substantial, particularly in the United States, which is at the forefront of AI development The IMF notes that, since early 2024, the strength of investment in the advanced G20 economies has been driven primarily by the US semiconductor and software sectors. In France, investment in software and databases has doubled over the last decade (a 2.5-fold increase in the United States), whilst investment in the construction of data centres has increased by a factor of 2.5.
  The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of the BIS. About the author Denis Beau More from this author

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