Even as conversations toward regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) are gaining momentum, the UN believes it is important for a global conversation to build on the momentum of efforts by smaller groups of countries and industry leaders. Ahead of the first global dialogue on AI governance in Geneva from July 6, Dr Claire Melamed, Vice President for AI and Digital Cooperation Strategy at the UN Foundation, told HT that as AI models become more powerful, governance is key.
“AI companies play a vital role in developing and disseminating this technology. However, as the power of AI grows, increasingly the companies themselves are asking governments to step in and help set up guardrails. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei have both recently called for this,” she says, adding that AI models have achieved capability to a degree and at a pace that was not expected even a few months ago.
The UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance is an important initiative led by 193 countries, along with the UNESCO Global AI Ethics and Governance Observatory, and G20 countries broadly recognizing the principles of safe, trustworthy and human-centred AI. The EU implements a comprehensive AI Act using a risk-based approach to classify and regulate AI. India’s policies such as the IndiaAI Mission guide domestic AI adoption and set standards.
“Although it is ultimately up to democratically elected governments to set public priorities and create legislation to meet competing interests, it is important that civil society and companies are also involved with other stakeholders to advise on relevant trade-offs and possibilities,” says Melamed.
The Global Dialogue on AI Governance will be addressed by Annalena Baerbock, President of the UN General Assembly, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Luc Frieden, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, as well as Agriselda López, Permanent Representative of El Salvador to the United Nations and Co-Chair of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, and Rein Tamser, Permanent Representative of Estonia to the United Nations. Co-Chair of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance.
Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh will represent India.
AI executives who are part of the dialogue include Brad Smith, vice president and president of Microsoft, Yossi Matias, vice president and general manager of Google Research, and Syed Quisar Ahmed, head of the responsible AI office at Infosys.
AI divides and people focus
Given the speed at which claims of AI’s potential are evolving, the conversation about AI governance and regulation is at a critical juncture. Anthropic’s next-generation cloud Fable 5 and Mythos 5 were suddenly taken offline in June, following a US government directive over serious cybersecurity concerns. Access has since been restored.
“This is certainly the beginning of a global process to answer one of the most important questions of our time: how to ensure that AI delivers humanity, equal opportunity, and does not leave entire communities or countries behind,” says Lopez. She focuses on how AI is continuously shaping various industries and streams, including education, healthcare and public services.
The progress of AI has been rapid. Over the past few weeks, Google has introduced a ‘Computer Use’ mode with the Gemini 3.5 Flash model to execute workflow tasks like a human operator.
OpenAI previewed its upcoming GPT-5.6 line, which includes the Sol flagship model, a balanced model for everyday work called Terra, as well as what it claims is a fast and affordable Luna model. OpenAI notes that the US government “insists on an initial release to a small group of trusted partners, whose participation is shared with the government,” before releasing more widely.
Lopez believes it is important to recognize the signs of AI fragmentation early on.
“It’s about infrastructure, it’s about data, skills, financing, institutional capacity, but also the ability to influence standards that will impact everyone. Innovation is everywhere. But the opportunity is not,” she says.
Compute disparities, including concentration of data centers, hardware availability, lack of data localization, as well as skills gap, are becoming major issues for AI companies as well as regulators to assess.
At this year’s India AI Impact Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted AI’s intention to reverse the geographical divide with respect to the balance of power. Addressing the summit he said, “For too long, the Global South has been treated as a market for technologies created elsewhere. With AI, we are changing the narrative. The Global South will not just use AI; we will shape it, build it and lead it.”
In its latest Global AI Adoption Report released earlier this year, tech company Microsoft reported that adoption in the Global North has grown almost twice as fast as in the Global South. The report also suggests a positive trend of growth in AI penetration in India, from 14.2% in the first half of 2025 to 15.7% in the second half of 2025. The term ‘diffusion’ measures the share of people worldwide who have used a generator AI product.
