DAVOS, Switzerland — In an age of populism and growing insularity, the World Economic Forum defied the odds this year by reclaiming its lost currency: relevance, Axios' Zachary Basu and Dave Lawler write.

• Why it matters: Thanks to a transformative technology and a hurricane of American power, Davos truly was the locus of global events.

🥱 In past years, the public side of the forum felt weightless. Speeches blurred together. Panel chatter evaporated into Alpine air. Big corporations generated little news of consequence, and world leaders even less.

• Not this week. The AI frenzy was palpable at WEF, reflecting a shared belief among CEOs, investors and governments that a society-wide transformation is underway.

💸 Zoom in: Social justice and climate themes faded from the agenda, replaced by a new moral framing — "center humanity" as AI adoption accelerates.

• But the animating question was more bluntly commercial: How and when will unprecedented AI investment begin to show commensurate returns?

🌪️ Zoom out: Only one force was powerful enough to pull Davos' attention away from the future and back to the present: President Trump and the fracturing global order.

• Trump's Greenland threats hijacked the forum from the start, with nervous jokes and oblique references to global "instability" becoming the default icebreaker at panels and parties.
• Then a parade of Western leaders, led by Canada's Mark Carney, took the main stage and dispensed with euphemism: The world had forever changed, and nostalgia was no strategy.

🚨 Davos became an emergency summit. Markets plunged as trade warfare and transatlantic rupture appeared inevitable. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged leaders to "take a deep breath" and wait for Trump's arrival.

• The advice proved sound: Trump insulted his way through a 70-minute speech inside a jam-packed Congress Hall but moved toward de-escalation by ruling out the use of military force to seize Greenland.
• Hours later, after meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump completed his extraordinary climbdown — lifting the tariff threat in exchange for a "framework for a future deal" in Greenland.

🧊 The Greenland saga hogged global headlines and turned WEF 2026 into an inflection point — accelerating Europe's entry into the dangerous new world of great power rivalry.

• Even the most jaded veterans seemed buoyed by the buzz on the Promenade and in the Congress Center.

The bottom line: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink — WEF's new interim co-chair, dubbed the "mayor of Davos" — opened the conference by hailing a record turnout of world leaders and CEOs, and questioning whether anyone outside the room would care.

• The answer turned out to be a resounding yes.

If you think AI is already accelerating frighteningly fast, just wait until the models can teach themselves, Axios' chief technology correspondent Ina Fried writes.

• Why it matters: The shift to models that learn as they go — much discussed among AI leaders at Davos — could catapult AI's capabilities forward, while introducing new risks.

🎤 Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said Google is exploring whether models can "continue to learn out in the wild after you finish training them."

• "That would be extraordinarily useful for being useful agents or useful in the workplace," Hassabis said in an onstage interview at Axios House, our gathering spot on the Davos main drag, the Promenade.

♟️ The intrigue: Hassabis' own AlphaZero models used this approach to learn games like chess and Go.

• But life doesn't exist within the confines of a chessboard. "The real world is way messier, way more complicated than the game," Hassabis said.

The Axios team arrived in Davos by train from neighboring Klosters each day for the conference — and what a train ride it is!

• Axios national energy correspondent Amy Harder took this video shortly after sunrise on Tuesday.

The vibes for the business elites at Davos were "wacky," a banking exec and Davos regular told Axios economics reporter Courtenay Brown.

• This was a "before Trump" and "after Trump" forum, with the mood dependent on what he'd say or do.

🖼️ The big picture: Trump's Greenland threats were haunting attendees and melting markets before he even arrived. At the same time, the AI investment boom dominated fireside chats (both formal and casual).

• There was optimism, with a dash of terror.
• Then Trump backed down, the markets rallied and everyone went home happy.

📌 Between the lines: There's no separating business and politics in Trump 2.0.

• "The week has been a bit focused on the political side of the equation," KPMG U.S. chair and CEO Tim Walsh told Axios.
• For those who came to do business, "some of the air was sucked out of the room," he said.

📈 What to watch: The IMF dropped rosy economic projections in Davos, citing a "tech-driven boom."

• But Davos was a reminder that Trump can quickly disrupt — and restore — the economic mood.

The clean-energy transition was sidelined but not silenced at Davos this year, Axios national energy correspondent Amy Harder writes.

• While Trump railed against windmills on the main stage, business leaders on the sidelines discussed massive investments in alternative energy to power the AI boom.

⚡️ Why it matters: The world's climate ambition has collapsed. But demand for clean energy is only increasing.

👀 The intrigue: Organizers reportedly told Trump they would nix "woke" topics, including climate change, to convince him to attend.

• Official sessions still covered the topic without saying the words, including the theme: "How can we build prosperity within planetary boundaries?"

🦾 What to watch: AI is sucking up huge amounts of energy in the near term. But many attendees expressed optimism that AI will ultimately help address the effects of climate change and power new energy innovation.

Trump's most ambitious act at Davos was the launch of his "Board of Peace" for Gaza and beyond, Axios global affairs correspondent Barak Ravid reports.

Why it matters: Trump and his team didn't limit themselves to sweeping pronouncements about their plans to rebuild the enclave, which stands destroyed and at risk of renewed war.

• 🛑 They also want to use the board as a platform to intervene in other conflicts.
• 🌏 "It's a Board of Peace around the world," a senior U.S. official told Axios.

Spooked by the idea of a "rival UN Security Council," with Trump holding the only veto, nearly every Western ally decided to sit it out for now.

• The 20 countries that attended Thursday's launch ranged from Pakistan to Paraguay.

Being there: Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff nearly broke down in tears during his remarks. "We have created a sense of hope for what the future can bring to Gaza," he said.

What to watch: The next phase of Trump's peace deal involves Hamas disarming, Israel pulling back, and a new security and political architecture coming into force. The White House has given itself 100 days for initial implementation.

• As in previous stages, the odds are against them. We'll know May 1.

Every year, wealthy people travel from all over the globe to a world-class ski resort at the height of ski season — and almost no one actually skis.

• 🛫 Business titans and their harried hangers-on jet in on Monday, attend a revolving door of meetings and receptions, and head out Thursday without ever touching snow.

Axios national security editor Dave Lawler did get out, and found the slopes pristine and placid. Amy Harder enjoyed the cross-country trails. Ina Fried played hockey.

• 🚡 Publisher Nicholas Johnston just likes to take the gondola up (or "climb an Alp," in his words) and stare down at the snowy valley below.

Here's our team, enjoying a farewell dinner at Peak Restaurant in the adjoining town of Klosters, where the Axios team stayed.

• From left: Ina Fried, Barak Ravid, Zachary Basu, Dave Lawler, Amy Harder, Courtenay Brown and executive editor Kate Marino.