Key insights
- HSBC analysis suggests US equities will benefit moderately from AI adoption, with a 15% net AI-enabled revenue share under a moderate disruption scenario. Semiconductors and tech hardware are key beneficiaries. However, increased disruption could negatively impact financial services and healthcare sectors. Emerging markets and sectors like Energy, Materials, and Utilities are seen as hedges due to low AI exposure.
Investing.com -- Taiwan and South Korea emerged as the biggest beneficiaries of artificial intelligence while India and parts of Europe face the steepest revenue losses, HSBC Global Investment Research said, mapping AI’s economic impact across global equity markets.
Under a moderate disruption scenario, Taiwan leads all markets with a net AI-enabled revenue share of 53%, followed by Korea at 33%, Hong Kong at 16%, the United States at 15% and mainland China at 14%. India registered the highest net AI-disrupted revenue share at 7%.
The picture darkens considerably under a large disruption scenario, where financial services exposure pulls Europe into negative territory. Austria faces the steepest net disruption, at 30% below baseline, followed by Spain and Ireland at 20% below baseline, and France at 11% below baseline.
"With so much uncertainty about the pace of development in AI over the next few years, we believe markets with low overall net AI exposure (both AI-enabled and AI-displacement) are attractive hedges to the theme," the broker said.
HSBC used FactSet’s RBICS framework to analyze nearly 2,000 business lines, applying its own GPT-5 model to score each category’s AI exposure. The exercise identified 300 business lines as AI-related.
The moderate scenario captures revenue categories with high disruption probability, concentrated in SaaS, consultancy, business process outsourcing and media services. The large disruption scenario extends to financial services, advisory, brokerage, insurance and healthcare software.
At the sector level, semiconductors and technology hardware rank as the clearest AI beneficiaries in both scenarios.
Commercial and professional services and media and entertainment face the deepest losses. Banks and healthcare equipment shift sharply negative under the large disruption scenario.
HSBC flagged Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and sectors including Energy, Materials and Utilities as having low overall AI exposure, in both the beneficiary and disruption categories, making them potential hedges against AI-driven volatility.