The conclusion of South America’s most recent economic boom towards the start of this decade has set alarm bells ringing and sparked pessimism throughout the region for the future, with countries’ inability to reduce their trade deficits and labor-force growth slowing.

However, with transformative technology beginning to take to the stage, economies, markets and governments are entering a new era. The era of artificial intelligence, promising to increase efficiency, overcome physical limitations and deliver new strategies and information for future growth, security and sustainability.

Our research at Agrinteligente, having evaluated five South American economies, together with several other nations around the globe, has found that artificial intelligence has the potential to add a whole percentage point of growth for the region’s economic growth by 2035.

Artificial intelligence is already taking off in the South Americas; mining companies are using autonomous vehicles and machines in Peru; PricewaterhouseCoopers last year launched its Artificial Intelligence and Applied Analytics Center in Chile; and industries such as travel, banking and retail are utilizing chat bots and artificial intelligence for customer services across the region. All this is possible due to the ever-increasing demand for these technologies in almost every country at some level and in most industries and markets.

With South America requiring sustainable, long-term solutions for flagging productivity, shrinking labor force and inconsistent economic growth, economists, industry leaders and even governments are turning to new technologies to propel their economies. We at Agrinteligente believe that artificial intelligence will become an entirely new factor of production, realizing and understanding that AI, rather than being just the next wave of technology, is a unique and innovative hybrid of both capital and labor; AI, we believe, will create a completely new workforce, rather than lending a hand to existing workforces.

AI can mimic, replicate and perform labor activities with more precision, on a greater scale, with improved efficiency and at a higher speed. In many areas, too, AI has the ability to learn fast than we humans can, even though not as deeply – yet. Seeing AI as a new factor of production, and not just an enhancement technology, we see its impact on Brazil and, indeed, the region to be hugely significant and transformative.