PARIS, April 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Sopra Steria, a major player in the European tech sector, is publishing a new study analysing the economic impact of disinformation worldwide in 2024. According to the analysis, information manipulation accounted for approximately $417 billion in 2024, a level comparable to the annual revenues of major technology companies or a significant share of the GDP of certain countries.
The study relies on an open and reproducible methodology, inspired by approaches used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), combining a meta-analysis of existing research, the analysis of documented cases and economic modelling.
Key findings:
"This study shows that disinformation is no longer only a democratic issue. It now represents a major economic risk for businesses and markets. With the industrialisation of information manipulation and the rise of artificial intelligence, organisations must now treat this phenomenon as a strategic risk. The challenge is clear: moving from awareness to the organisation of genuine information resilience at the European level."
For a long time, disinformation was primarily analysed from a political or democratic perspective. In recent years, however, it has expanded dramatically in scale. The rise of social media, the industrialisation of information manipulation campaigns and the emergence of generative artificial intelligence have transformed it into a major economic risk.
To better understand this reality, Sopra Steria has published a study aiming to quantify the global economic impact of disinformation. Its central estimate amounts to $417 billion for 2024, divided into three major categories of impact: financial flows, estimated at $393 billion; social impacts, $10 billion; and political impacts, $14 billion.
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Aurélien Flaugnatti,
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