Human Development Report 2025

A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI. Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken off at an accelerated and dizzying pace. Although AI advances attract attention, they prioritize technology in a vacuum of fiction, obscuring what really matters: people's choices.

The choices that people have and can make, within the context of ever-expanding freedoms, are essential for human development, the goal of which is for people to live lives they value and have reasons to value. A world with AI is full of choices, the exercise of which is simultaneously a matter of human development and a means of advancing it.
In the future, development will depend less on what AI can do—and not on how human it is perceived to be—and more on mobilizing people's imaginations to reshape economies and societies to make the most of it. Instead of trying to predict what will happen in vain, this year's Human Development Report asks what choices can be made so that new development pathways for all countries dot the horizon, helping everyone have an opportunity to thrive in a world with AI.