What happened
The UN's second Global Risk Report (following the inaugural 2024 edition) surveyed more than 1,300 stakeholders across 155 countries — governments, business, civil society, academia, and the UN system — rating 28 political, economic, environmental, societal, and technological risks on importance, imminence, interconnectedness, and multilateral preparedness. While large-scale war emerged as the single biggest 'global vulnerability' (climbing 16 places in imminence, the largest shift in the survey), the report finds that 'AI and frontier technologies' and 'technology-driven power concentration' were rated far bigger threats than in 2024, and that the multilateral system is judged least prepared to respond to technological risks of all 28 categories measured — AI and frontier technologies ranked 24th of 28 for preparedness, and technology-driven power concentration 22nd. The report explicitly frames this as innovation 'outpacing our capacity to govern it' (Secretary-General Guterres, foreword). Methodology: perception survey conducted 19 February–24 April 2026, comparing results against the 2024 baseline survey.
Why it matters
This is the only global, cross-sectoral quantitative benchmark of how governments, business, and civil society jointly rank AI/frontier-tech risk against geopolitical, economic, and environmental threats — and it documents that institutional readiness to govern AI is now perceived as worse, in relative terms, than readiness for war, financial crisis, or cyber breakdown. Boards and policy leads should use this as an external, non-vendor benchmark for how their AI governance posture compares to global expectations of institutional preparedness.
Action needed
Brief the board and risk committee on the report's technology-risk preparedness gap and benchmark internal AI governance maturity against the multilateral-preparedness findings.