The first Global Dialogue on AI Governance, convened in Geneva on July 6 and 7, 2026, is the UN’s flagship multistakeholder forum on artificial intelligence (AI). Together with its companion body—the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI—it forms the institutional core of a governance architecture rooted in the Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact (2024) and formally authorized by General Assembly Resolution 79/325 (2025). The Panel produces annual evidence-based assessments of AI’s opportunities, risks, and societal impacts. The Dialogue translates that evidence into political conversation among governments, civil society, and the private sector. Neither body carries binding authority, but both hold the power to decide what qualifies as an AI governance issue. Yet the intersection of AI with peace has not yet found its place on the agenda, despite peace being the very reason the UN exists.

In her opening remarks at the Dialogue, Annalena Baerbock, President of the General Assembly, turned to the UN Charter—specifically its language on international cooperation on problems of “an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character”—to answer those questioning whether AI belongs on the UN’s agenda. But invoking the Charter as the source of the UN’s authority to govern AI means invoking the whole of it. The UN’s overriding purpose, stated in the Charter, is “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” That first commitment cannot be quietly left out. The UN was forged in catastrophe to prevent catastrophe. If its newest governance instruments cannot hold space for that original purpose, they are incomplete. Read more