Keynote speech by Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at ECB-SAFE-RCEA International Conference on the Climate-Macro-Finance Interface (3CMFI)

Frankfurt, 23 March 2026

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) stands out as a potentially-transformative general-purpose technology (GPT).^{[1] [2]} Like electricity or the internet before it, its potential lies not in any single application but its capacity to reshape entire production processes, business models and economic structures across the economy.^[3]

The AI technological frontier has advanced at a remarkable pace, progressing from narrow machine-learning systems capable of pattern recognition to large language models and generative AI platforms that can perform complex cognitive tasks. And the frontier keeps shifting. With agentic AI, the technology may increasingly act as an independent economic agent rather than a technology that merely augments human effort.^[4]

What distinguishes AI from earlier revolutionary…