In a meta-experiment on the future of the global economy, Deutsche Bank Research Institute looks to the machines themselves for answers. Rather than relying solely on traditional economic models, analysts asked their proprietary artificial intelligence tool, dbLumina, to identify exactly which industries it aimed to disrupt. The resulting report lays out a stark vision of the “Great Rebalance,” pinpointing where algorithms are expected to replace human labor.
The experiment is detailed in a report titled “How Artificial Intelligence Is Eating Itself and the World,” which provides an in-depth analysis of the global industry using Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro model. The findings suggest that industries that are data-rich and perform repetitive tasks are standing on the precipice, while those that require human empathy or manual dexterity in unpredictable environments remain safe for now.
(Also “Wealth Intelligence”, wealth A newsroom using generative artificial intelligence as a research tool conducted a meta-experiment to speed up the publication of this news article about it. )
Perhaps the most ironic conclusion for Silicon Valley is that the industries most vulnerable to disruption may be the ones that create the disruptors: information technology and software. AI finds the industry particularly vulnerable because software development is built on logic and patterns—the very things AI systems are designed to automate.
The report states that more than 85% of developers are already using AI coding assistants, with productivity improvements of up to 60%. This efficiency gain may help businesses, but it also raises concerns about the long-term sustainability of the traditional software licensing model. The recent $2 trillion sell-off in software stocks in two weeks, dubbed the “SaaS apocalypse,” highlighted investor anxiety and the disappearance of entry-level coding roles.
In addition to technology, artificial intelligence has also set its sights on the financial field. It identifies wealth management as a key target and predicts a larger shift toward “robo-advisors.” The report predicts that by 2027, AI-driven tools may become the primary source of advice for nearly 80% of retail investors, fundamentally challenging the role of human financial advisors.
Customer service faces faster transformation. AI predicts that by 2026, it will handle up to 75% of customer service interactions, while human agents can only handle the most complex or sensitive cases. Media and entertainment are also being labeled as “potentially disruptive” as generative AI shifts from analyzing content to producing it, actively competing with human creativity. (Media theorist Doug Shapiro tells wealth In January, it was the industry’s version of the famous “Infinite Monkey Theorem,” where every media company is competing against a proverbial infinite number of monkeys. )
