Artificial intelligence and increasingly complex supply chains are creating new pathways through which business disruptions could spread across sectors and economies, according to new analysis from Swiss Re Institute and the London School of Economics.

The joint study analysed risk disclosures from 91 Fortune 100 companies in 2019 and 2026, finding 24% more links between the risks reported by businesses. Swiss Re Institute and LSE said the findings point to a broader shift in systemic risk, with threats increasingly interacting across financial, digital, natural-hazard and socio-economic systems.

Growing reliance on common suppliers, technology platforms and critical infrastructure means that a disruption in one area could increasingly cascade into seemingly unrelated parts of the economy. AI is emerging as one of the key connections. The proportion of companies reporting AI and new-technology risks increased by around 30% between 2019 and 2026, with risks now being reported across sectors including retail, airlines, pharmaceuticals and food.

The research suggests that widespread reliance on common technologies and similar AI models could also result in faster and more synchronised reactions to disruption. Jón Daníelsson, director of the systemic risk centre and reader in finance at LSE, said: “We tend to prepare for the last crisis and try to predict the trigger for the next. But systemic crises are defined by what happens after the shock – and AI could fundamentally change that dynamic.

“If institutions increasingly use similar models and react at machine speed, a containable shock can become systemic before there is time to respond. The challenge is not to predict the next crisis, but to be prepared for shocks we cannot foresee.”

Supply chains represent another major point of connection, with geopolitical tensions, tariffs, climate events, pandemics and cyberattacks able to interact through supply networks and create multiple routes for disruption to spread.

The study also highlights concentration risks around critical infrastructure. It notes that three providers controlled 70% of global cloud infrastructure in 2024, while three companies processed 97% of global credit card transactions.

Ivan Gonzalez, chief executive officer of corporate solutions at Swiss Re, said: “A company may look diversified until you discover that its suppliers, technology providers and customers depend on the same infrastructure. One disruption can therefore affect more parts of a business than expected. Understanding those dependencies may help companies reduce concentrations, strengthen resilience and decide which risks they can absorb and which they need to transfer.”

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