{"id":237458,"date":"2026-01-10T07:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T07:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/237458\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T07:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T07:26:08","slug":"read-bill-gatess-2026-annual-letter-in-full","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/237458\/","title":{"rendered":"Read Bill Gates\u2019s 2026 annual letter in full"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft<\/a> co-founder Bill Gates is a seasoned optimist. Even then, 2025 proved an especially difficult pill to swallow<\/a>. <\/p>\n

After dedicating decades of his life to philanthropic endeavors, and pledging virtually all his wealth to humanitarian aid around the world, Gates could only watch from the sidelines as the U.S. government cancelled foreign aid contracts<\/a> under a second Trump administration.<\/p>\n

The 70-year-old tech titan has been critical of these decisions, warning it could lead to the death of children<\/a>. He has also sought to speak directly to President Trump about why the American government should continue funding life-saving programs around the world, and believes there is time yet to get the world \u201cback on track.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his 2026 annual letter, Gates wrote that while he remains upbeat about the future, his optimism now comes with footnotes. He questioned whether generosity would grow in line with an increasingly wealthy global population, and whether innovation will be scaled in way which improves equality.<\/p>\n

Indeed Gates, who has always been bullish on the transformative powers AI can have on healthcare and climate matters, also mused on how to minimize the negative disruption of the revolutionary technology as it continues to accelerate in capability.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Bill Gates\u2019s 2026 annual letter, released today, in full:<\/p>\n

The Year Ahead: Optimism with Footnotes<\/p>\n

As we start 2026, I am thinking about how the year ahead will set us up for the decades to come.<\/p>\n

By Bill Gates<\/p>\n

I have always been an optimist. When I founded Microsoft, I believed a digital revolution powered by great software would make the world a better place. When I started the Gates Foundation, I saw an opportunity to save and improve millions of lives because critical areas like children\u2019s health were getting so little money.<\/p>\n

In both cases, the results exceeded my expectations. We are far better off than when I was born 70 years ago. I believe the world will keep improving\u2014but it is harder to see that today than it has been in a long time.<\/p>\n

Friends and colleagues often ask me how I stay optimistic in an era with so many challenges and so much polarization. My answer is this:\u00a0I am still an optimist because I see what innovation accelerated by artificial intelligence will bring. But these days, my optimism comes with footnotes.<\/p>\n

The thing I am most upset about is the fact that the world went backwards last year on a key metric of progress: the number of deaths of children under 5 years old.\u00a0Over the last 25 years, those deaths went down faster than at any other point in history.\u00a0But in 2025, they went up for the first time this century, from 4.6 million in 2024 to 4.8 million in 2025\u2014an increase driven by less support from rich countries to poor countries. This trend will continue unless we make progress in restoring aid budgets.<\/p>\n

The next five years will be difficult as we try to get back on track and work to scale up new lifesaving tools. Yet I remain optimistic about the long-term future. As hard as last year was, I don\u2019t believe we will slide back into the Dark Ages.\u00a0I believe that, within the next decade, we will not only get the world back on track but enter a new era of unprecedented progress.<\/p>\n

The key will be, as always,\u00a0innovation. Consider this: An HIV diagnosis used to be a death sentence. Today, thanks to revolutionary treatments, a person with HIV can expect to live almost as long as someone without the virus. By the 2040s,\u00a0new innovations<\/a>\u00a0could virtually eliminate deaths from HIV\/AIDS.<\/p>\n

Budget cuts limit how many people benefit from lifesaving tools, as we saw to devastating effect last year. But nothing can erase the fact that for decades we didn\u2019t know how to save people from HIV, and now we do.\u00a0Breakthroughs are a bell that cannot be unrung.\u00a0They ensure that we will never go back to\u00a0the world in 2000 where over 10 million children died from preventable causes every year<\/a>\u2014and they form the core of my optimism about where the world is headed.<\/p>\n

But as I mentioned, there are footnotes to my optimism. Although the innovation pipeline sets us up for long-term success, the trajectory of progress hinges on how the world addresses three key questions.<\/p>\n

1. Will a world that is getting richer increase its generosity toward those in need?<\/p>\n

The \u201cgolden rule\u201d precept is more important now than ever with the record disparities in wealth. This idea of treating others as you wish to be treated does not just apply to rich countries giving aid. It must also include philanthropy from the wealthy to help those in need\u2014both domestically and globally\u2014which should grow rapidly in a world with a record number of billionaires and even centibillionaires.<\/p>\n

Through the\u00a0Giving Pledge<\/a>, I get to work with a number of incredible philanthropists who set a great example by giving away substantial portions of their wealth in smart ways. However, more needs to be done to encourage higher levels of generosity from the rich and to show how fulfilling and impactful it can be.<\/p>\n

Turning to aid budgets for poor countries, I am worried about one number:\u00a0If funding for health decreases by 20 percent, 12 million more children could die by 2045.\u00a0I know cuts won\u2019t be reversed overnight, even though aid represented less than 1 percent of GDP even in the most generous countries. But it is critical that we restore some of the funding. The foundation\u2019s\u00a0Goalkeepers report<\/a>\u00a0lays out what is at risk and how the world can best spend the aid it gives.<\/p>\n

I will spend much of my year working with partners to advocate for increased funding for the health of the world\u2019s children. I plan to engage with a number of communities, including health care workers, religious groups, and members of diaspora communities to help make this case.<\/p>\n

2. Will the world prioritize scaling innovations that improve equality?<\/p>\n

Some problems require doing far more than just letting market incentives take their course.<\/p>\n

The first critical area is\u00a0climate change. Without a large global carbon tax (which is, unfortunately, politically unachievable), market forces do not properly incentivize the creation of technologies to reduce climate-related emissions.<\/p>\n

Yet only by replacing all emitting activities with cheaper alternatives will we stop the temperature increase. This is why I started Breakthrough Energy 10 years ago and why I will continue to put billions into innovation.<\/p>\n

The world has made meaningful progress in the last decade, cutting projected emissions by more than 40 percent. But we still have a lot of innovation and scaling up to do in tough areas like industrial emissions and aviation. Government policies in rich countries are still critical because unless innovations reach scale, the costs won\u2019t come down and we won\u2019t achieve the impact we need.<\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t limit climate change, it will join poverty and infectious disease in causing enormous suffering, especially for the world\u2019s poorest people. Since even in the best case the temperature will continue to go up, we also need to innovate to minimize the negative impacts.<\/p>\n

This is called climate adaptation, and a critical example is helping farmers in poor countries with better seeds and better advice so they can grow more even in the face of climate change. Using AI, we will soon be able to provide poor farmers with better advice about weather, prices, crop diseases, and soil than even the richest farmers get today. The foundation has committed $1.4 billion to supporting farmers on the frontlines of extreme weather.<\/p>\n

I will be investing and giving more than ever to climate work in the years ahead while also continuing to give more to children\u2019s health, the foundation\u2019s top priority. The need to ensure money is spent on the most important priorities was the topic of a\u00a0memo<\/a>\u00a0I wrote in the fall.<\/p>\n

A second critical area where the world must focus on innovation-driven equality is\u00a0health care. Concerns about healthcare costs and quality are higher than ever in all countries.<\/p>\n

In theory, people should feel optimistic about the state of health care with the incredible pipeline of innovations. For example, a recent breakthrough in diagnosing Alzheimer\u2019s will revolutionize how we test for\u2014and ultimately prevent\u2014this disease, saving billions of dollars in costs. (Funding Alzheimer\u2019s research is a\u00a0particular focus for me<\/a>.) There\u2019s similar progress on obesity and cancer, as well as on problems in developing countries like malaria, TB, and malnutrition.<\/p>\n

Despite so much progress, however, the cost and complexity of the system means very few people are satisfied with their care. I believe we can improve health care dramatically in all countries by using AI not only to accelerate the development of innovations but directly in the delivery of health care.<\/p>\n

Like many of you, I already use AI to better understand my own health. Just imagine what will be possible as it improves and becomes available for every patient and provider. Always-available, high-quality medical advice will improve medicine by every measure.<\/p>\n

We aren\u2019t quite there yet\u2014developers still have work to do on reliability and how we connect the AI to doctors and nurses so they are empowered to check and override the system. But I\u2019m optimistic we will soon begin to scale access globally. I am following this work so the Gates Foundation and partners can make sure this capability is available in the countries that need it most\u2014where there aren\u2019t enough medical personnel\u2014at the same time it is available elsewhere. We are already working on pilots and making sure that even relatively uncommon African languages are fully supported.<\/p>\n

Governments will have to play a central role in leading the implementation of AI into their health systems. This is another case where the market alone won\u2019t and can\u2019t provide the solution.<\/p>\n

A third and final area I will mention briefly is\u00a0education. AI gives us a chance for the kind of personalized learning to keep students motivated that we have dreamed of in the past. This is now a focus of the Gates Foundation\u2019s spending on education, and I am hopeful it will\u00a0be empowering to both teachers and students. I\u2019ve seen this\u00a0firsthand in New Jersey<\/a>, and it will be game changing as we scale it for the world.<\/p>\n

All three of these areas\u2014climate, health, and education\u2014can improve rapidly with the right government focus. This year I will spend a lot of time meeting with pioneers all over the world to see which countries are doing the best work so we can spread best practices.<\/p>\n

3. Will we minimize negative disruptions caused by AI as it accelerates?<\/p>\n

Of all the things humans have ever created, AI will change society the most. It will help solve many of our current problems while also bringing new challenges very different from past innovations.<\/p>\n

When people in the AI space predict that\u00a0AGI<\/a>\u00a0or fully humanoid robots will come soon and then those deadlines are missed, it creates the impression that these things will never happen. However, there is no upper limit on how intelligent AIs will get or on how good robots will get, and I believe the advances will not plateau before exceeding human levels.<\/p>\n

The two big challenges in the next decade are\u00a0use of\u00a0AI by bad actors\u00a0and\u00a0disruption to the job market.Both are real risks that we need to do a better job managing. We\u2019ll need to be deliberate about how this technology is developed, governed, and deployed.<\/p>\n

In 2015, I gave a\u00a0TED talk<\/a>\u00a0warning that the world was not ready to handle a pandemic. If we had prepared properly for the Covid pandemic, the amount of human suffering would have been dramatically less. Today, an even greater risk than a naturally caused pandemic is that a non-government group will use open source AI tools to design a bioterrorism weapon.<\/p>\n

The second challenge is\u00a0job market disruption. AI capabilities will allow us to make far more goods and services with less labor. In a mathematical sense, we should be able to allocate these new capabilities in ways that benefit everyone. As AI delivers on its potential, we could reduce the work week or even decide there are some areas we don\u2019t want to use AI in.<\/p>\n

The effects of this disruption are hard to model. Sometimes, when a game-changing technology improves rapidly, it drives more demand at lower cost and, by making the world richer, increases demand in other areas. For example, AI makes software developers at least twice as efficient, which makes coding cheaper while also creating demand elasticity for code. (Computing is a good historical example where lower costs actually caused the overall market to grow.)<\/p>\n

Even with this complexity, the rate of improvement is already starting to be enough to disrupt job demand in areas like software development. Other areas like warehouse work or phone support are not quite there yet, but once the AIs become more capable, the job disruption will be more immediate.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re already starting to see the impact of AI on the job market, and I think this impact will grow over the next five years. Even if the transition takes longer than I expect, we should use 2026 to prepare ourselves for these changes\u2014including which policies will best help spread the wealth and deal with the important role jobs play in our society. Different political parties will likely suggest different approaches.<\/p>\n

By including these footnotes, particularly the last one, some readers may find my continued optimism even more surprising. But as we start 2026, I remain optimistic about the days ahead because of two core human capabilities.<\/p>\n

The first is our ability to anticipate problems and prepare for them, and therefore ensure that our new discoveries make all of us better off.\u00a0\u00a0The second is our capacity to care about each other. Throughout history, you can always find stories of people tending not just to themselves or their clan or their country but to the greater good.<\/p>\n

Those two qualities\u2014foresight and care\u2014are what give me hope as the year begins.\u00a0As long as we keep exercising those abilities, I believe the years ahead can be ones of real progress.<\/p>\n

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is a seasoned optimist. Even then, 2025 proved an especially difficult pill to swallow.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[5873,120567,103,397,396,61,60,120568,120569,120566],"class_list":{"0":"post-237458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-bill-gates","9":"tag-critical-area","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-poor-countries","16":"tag-rich-countries","17":"tag-the-gates-foundation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}