Sharp changes are afoot throughout the globe. Demographics are shifting, technology is advancing at unprecedented rates, and these changes are being felt everywhere. How should we develop strategies to deal with this emerging new world? We can begin by understanding it.

Our takeaway from our roundtable on Latin America in an emerging new world is a region showing gradual—and fragile—economic, social, and governance progress on average, but with significant heterogeneity lying beneath, both within and across individual countries. For example, while Mexican manufacturers are by some counts already more roboticized—and therefore more ready for future disruptions—than those in the United States, citizens in some areas of the country live with few opportunities in conditions more closely resembling sub-Saharan Africa.