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As AI capabilities rapidly advance and redefine global innovation, we risk losing sight of the human values that must anchor its progress. At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, held in New Delhi, UNESCO strives to place humanity, ethics, and sustainability at the forefront of dialogue on AI development.
The India AI Impact Summit reminds us that the future of AI lies not only in technology, but in the values that shape it—human rights-based governance, ethics, and capacity building that together ensure lasting impact for people and planet.
With its global reach through 193 Member States and cross-cutting mandate spanning education, science, culture, and communication, UNESCO is uniquely positioned to advance global thinking on AI ethics. The organization produced the first global framework on ethical AI governance and is working to translate it into action. As part of the summit, UNESCO convened a series of high-level events to highlight challenges and solutions that can ensure that AI can benefit everyone.
Alongside developments in other sectors, AI is transforming justice delivery worldwide. Courts and tribunals are increasingly employing AI to streamline operations, access legal knowledge, and enhance transparency, bringing both extraordinary opportunities and complex risks. A survey conducted by UNESCO revealed that 44% of judiciary professionals integrate AI into their daily work, yet 91% of judicial operators report that their institutions do not provide training or official guidelines on the responsible use of AI.
UNESCO leveraged the AI Impact Summit as a platform to examine concrete strategies and tools that build the capacity of lawyers, judges, and law students to use AI ethically. As part of its ‘AI & the Rule of Law’ programme, that equips judicial operators with the skills to responsibly incorporate AI, UNESCO released the issue brief ‘AI Essentials for Judges’ at the summit.
Over one billion people use generative AI daily, creating mounting energy demands and widening global inequalities. Training a single frontier AI model can consume the annual electricity of thousands of households, not to mention the energy required for user interactions. During its round-table event ‘Smaller Footprint, Bigger Impact: Advancing Resilient and Efficient AI Models for a Sustainable Future,’ UNESCO discussed how lightweight AI models can reduce energy consumption up to 90%.
To advance the development of lightweight AI models, UNESCO launched the ‘Resilient AI Challenge’ at the summit. Co-organized with the Governments of France and India and supported by the Sustainable AI Coalition, Mistral AI, Sarvam, AiKosh, Hugging Face, UCL, and Pruna.ai, the challenge aims to identify and support energy-efficient AI solutions capable of operating in resource-constrained environments.
In sustainability, our Coalition for Sustainable AI now has more than 200 supporters. Today with India and UNESCO, we launched an international challenge for sustainable AI models. Last year in Paris, we called it Action. This year in Delhi, we call it Impact. But the real name is simpler, AI Together.
The UNESCO event ‘Humanity in the Loop – Balancing Innovation and Ethics in the Age of AI’ raised awareness for the necessity of implementing human-centered principles into the design, deployment, and governance of AI. Leaders from multilateral organizations, governments, academia, civil society, and the private sector gathered to demonstrate how values-driven approaches accelerate innovation, strengthen public trust, and enhance societal well-being.
Amid rising questions about accountability, fairness, inclusiveness, human rights, and information integrity, steps must be taken to ensure that the promise of AI enables everyone to benefit. Together with its partners, UNESCO is driving efforts to uphold human agency in technological innovation.
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