In July 2025, Geneva will host two overlapping UN events focused on digital governance: the established World Summit on the Information Society Forum and the inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI. This convergence aims to leverage past digital governance lessons to guide the emerging global approach to artificial intelligence regulation.
- UNGDAI debuts alongside the WSIS Forum for digital governance synergy
- WSIS experience highlights importance of broad multistakeholder engagement
- AI governance must learn from unfinished internet governance efforts
What happened
In July 2025 at the UN Geneva center, two major processes in digital governance coincide. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum, ongoing for two decades, convenes stakeholders to review progress on building a people-centered and development-focused information society. At the same venue, the inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI (UNGDAI) is launched to initiate formal UN-led conversations on artificial intelligence governance.
This simultaneous scheduling is intentional, designed to create synergy between established internet governance frameworks and the newer, rapidly evolving initiative to govern AI technologies. The UNGDAI gathers government officials, private companies, and civil society representatives worldwide to share best practices and enhance cooperation on AI governance challenges.
Why it matters
The launch of the UNGDAI represents a pivotal step in global AI governance, addressing a fragmented landscape of local and international initiatives. WSIS, which first brought a diverse multistakeholder approach to digital policy, offers critical lessons for building inclusive, transparent governance mechanisms that can adapt to rapidly changing technology.
Internet governance remains a work in progress, and AI governance faces even greater complexity as AI systems depend heavily on the internet’s infrastructure and social frameworks. Learning from WSIS not only can help avoid repetition of past mistakes but can also ensure new AI governance structures are people-centered and inclusive, reflecting a wide range of interests beyond dominant technology powers.
What to watch next
Stakeholders will closely observe how the UNGDAI balances inclusivity with the need for effective global coordination, especially given the uneven representation in previous AI summits which favored OECD countries and tech giants. The extent to which UNGDAI can bring more global diversity into AI governance discussions will be critical to its legitimacy and impact.
Future developments will also hinge on how UNGDAI and WSIS processes intersect and complement each other in practice. Tracking ongoing dialogues and the adoption of multistakeholder recommendations will reveal whether these UN efforts create sustainable frameworks that can effectively govern AI while advancing a fair, development-oriented digital society.