Overview
HSBC Global Investment Research released an analysis that ranks countries and sectors by their projected net shifts in revenue exposure to artificial intelligence. The study presents two disruption scenarios - moderate and large - and quantifies where revenue gains from AI-enabled activities and losses from AI displacement could concentrate.
Regional winners under a moderate scenario
In the moderate disruption case, Taiwan tops the list with a net AI-enabled revenue share of 53%. South Korea follows with 33%, Hong Kong registers 16%, the United States posts 15%, and mainland China records 14%. By contrast, India shows the greatest net share of revenue disrupted by AI, at 7%.
How outcomes change under a larger disruption
The assessment becomes considerably less favorable for parts of Europe in the large disruption scenario. HSBC finds that financial services exposure drags European markets into negative territory. Austria experiences the most severe net downturn, at 30% below baseline. Spain and Ireland each sit at 20% below baseline, while France is 11% below baseline.
Methodology
HSBC applied FactSet's RBICS framework to nearly 2,000 business lines and used its own GPT-5 model to score each category for 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 the potential impact to include financial services, advisory, brokerage, insurance and healthcare software.
Sector-level findings
At the sector level, semiconductors and technology hardware emerge as the clearest beneficiaries in both the moderate and large scenarios. Conversely, commercial and professional services, together with media and entertainment, face the deepest revenue losses. Banks and healthcare equipment move sharply negative under the large disruption framework.
Hedging and low-exposure areas
HSBC highlighted Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and sectors such as Energy, Materials and Utilities as having low overall AI exposure in both beneficiary and disruption categories. The bank suggests that markets with low net AI exposure may serve as attractive hedges to the AI theme, noting: "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."
Key takeaways
- Taiwan and South Korea are identified as the largest AI beneficiaries under a moderate disruption scenario, with Taiwan at 53% and Korea at 33% net AI-enabled revenue share.
- A large disruption scenario shifts the balance, pulling multiple European markets into negative net revenue changes due to financial services exposure.
- Semiconductors and technology hardware consistently gain, while commercial and professional services and media and entertainment face sizable losses; banks and healthcare equipment worsen under a large disruption.
Risks and uncertainties
- The pace and extent of AI development are uncertain - changes in that trajectory would alter which markets and sectors benefit or suffer.
- Financial services' exposure to AI-driven disruption could push entire regional outcomes negative in more extreme scenarios.
- Low overall AI exposure in some regions and sectors offers potential hedges, but those areas may also miss out on upside if AI adoption proves more incremental than disruptive.
Conclusion
HSBC's mapping provides a scenario-based view of winners and losers from AI across global equity markets, driven by detailed business-line scoring. The results emphasize significant geographic and sectoral divergence: semiconductor and tech hardware hubs look set to gain in both scenarios, while services-heavy industries and some European markets could face meaningful revenue pressure if AI disruption widens.