Governments, technology companies, academics, and civil society representatives are gathering in Geneva from July 6-7, 2026, for the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance. The summit aims to address how to regulate artificial intelligence (AI), a technology advancing faster than existing rules can contain.

Ahead of the meeting, UN News interviewed four participants, including two co-chairs of the Dialogue and two co-chairs of the UN’s Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence. This panel, composed of 40 experts from every region of the world serving in their personal capacity, recently published a report outlining AI’s opportunities and risks.

The participants emphasized AI’s potential to bring transformational benefits globally if used responsibly. However, they also warned of new dangers arising from the technology’s rapid evolution. Yoshua Bengio, a member of the Scientific Panel, noted that AI is approaching or surpassing human capabilities in many domains and is outpacing both scientific understanding and governments’ ability to adapt. He cautioned that "science currently cannot guarantee that as capabilities continue to increase, AI will not cause catastrophic harm, either on its own or due to malicious users."

The summit will focus on developing universally accepted global guardrails to manage AI’s development and deployment safely and fairly. The Panel’s work feeds directly into this international dialogue, highlighting the urgent need for coordinated governance frameworks.

The question at the heart of the summit is whether artificial intelligence can benefit all humanity without causing catastrophic harm.

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