The instrumental convergence thesis is the alleged overlap in instrumental goals expected to be exhibited by a broad class of advanced AI systems, due to their usefulness for the attainment of a wide range of possible final goals.

Commonly expected instrumental goals towards which all intelligent agents would converge are self-preservation and securing resources, as no agent will be able to achieve any goal in the future without first preserving its own existence into the future, and virtually any goal requires resources to be achieved.