The AI Diplomacy Council
Shaping how nations negotiate the age of Artificial Intelligence.
Why AI Diplomacy
Artificial intelligence has moved from a technical topic to the center of statecraft
AI now shapes national security, economic competitiveness, and the balance of power between states, as well as between states and companies. The Council gives this emerging discipline a neutral, multilateral home.
Advise
Governments and international organizations
Convene
Diplomats and AI leaders across divides
Publish
Analysis for the Global Report
Build Capacity
AI expertise in Public and Private Sectors
What is AI Diplomacy?
AI diplomacy is the conduct of international relations with, about, and through artificial intelligence, by states and non-state actors, to shape norms, build partnerships, advance interests, and influence international order. It treats AI as a subject of negotiation, a tool of diplomatic practice, and a force reshaping the international system itself.
Scholars have begun to give AI diplomacy formal definition. In a 2026 peer-reviewed study, Truby, Dahdal, Brown define it as the process by which state and non-state actors manage international relations through negotiation and cooperation on the cross-border development, use, and regulation of artificial intelligence. The Geneva-based DiploFoundation describes it as the full range of activities nations use to manage their international relationships regarding AI, noting that AI is at once a topic for diplomacy, a tool for diplomacy, and a force reshaping the environment in which diplomacy is practiced.
Building on this emerging scholarship, and applying the WAT framework for tech diplomacy developed by the Tech Diplomacy Global Institute, our definition spans three connected dimensions:
Diplomacy with AI actors. Diplomatic engagement with the full ecosystem shaping AI: frontier labs and startups, the research community, international organizations, civil society, and moral authorities. Influence over AI has migrated well beyond states, and diplomacy must engage wherever that influence resides.
Diplomacy about AI. The negotiation of the rules, norms, and institutions governing artificial intelligence: safety frameworks, international standards, ethics, accountability, and the architecture of global AI governance, from the UN and UNESCO to the international summit process.
Diplomacy through AI. The strategic use of AI capability as an instrument of statecraft: sovereign AI strategies, national positioning through trusted AI infrastructure and governance credibility, and the adoption of AI within diplomatic practice itself, from negotiation support to consular services and crisis response.
At its core, AI diplomacy is also a negotiation about the human condition: deciding, together, what should be entrusted to machines and what must remain human. This question now reaches well beyond governments and industry. In May 2026, Pope Leo XIV devoted his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, to safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence, including a call for diplomacy and multilateralism. When the world’s oldest diplomatic actor enters the AI debate, it confirms what the Council holds as its premise: artificial intelligence has become a matter for diplomacy at every level of the international system.
Like climate diplomacy a generation ago, AI diplomacy is emerging because a transnational force has outgrown the institutions designed to govern it. No single country can regulate frontier AI alone. Models are trained in one jurisdiction, deployed in a second, and cause effects in a third. Compute supply chains cross a dozen borders. The companies building the most capable systems negotiate directly with heads of state. This is diplomatic terrain, and it requires diplomats, negotiators, and institutions equipped for it.
The AI Diplomacy Council exists to build that capacity: a neutral, multilateral body where governments, international organizations, researchers, and industry shape the norms of the AI age together.
The Challenge
A fragmented governance landscape
The world is not short of AI governance initiatives. It is short of coordination between them. The EU AI Act, the US executive approach, China’s regulatory framework, the UN’s Global Digital Compact, the AI summit series, the OECD principles, UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI: each advances important work, yet they overlap, compete, and leave gaps.
Three tensions define the current moment:
Regulatory divergence. Competing governance models are hardening into blocs. Companies face incompatible compliance regimes, while smaller states face pressure to choose sides rather than shape outcomes.
The capability divide. A handful of countries and companies control frontier models, advanced chips, and the compute needed to train them. Most of the world’s governments are consumers of AI decisions made elsewhere. Left unaddressed, this divide will define the geopolitics of the coming decades.
The missing diplomatic layer. Foreign ministries are being asked to negotiate AI issues with few trained negotiators, no established playbook, and limited technical fluency. The expertise exists in labs and universities. It has not yet reached the negotiating table.
The Council’s work addresses all three: bridging governance models, widening participation, and building the diplomatic capacity the field lacks.
The Council’s Mandate
What the Council is charged to do
The Council operates under a two-year renewable mandate from the Institute; the current mandate runs from 2026 to 2028. Within it, the AI Diplomacy Council brings together AI researchers, former ministers, Tech Ambassadors, and industry leaders to:
- Develop governance frameworks for sovereign AI: national autonomy over AI infrastructure, models, data, and talent
- Advise governments on positioning within multilateral AI processes (UN, OECD, G7/G20, AI Safety Summits)
- Build shared approaches to cross-border data governance, privacy, and digital rights as the foundation of trustworthy AI
- Anticipate the diplomatic consequences of frontier AI capabilities, from autonomous systems to AI-enabled statecraft
- Contribute the Council’s analysis to the Global Technology Diplomacy Report and support the AI curriculum of the Tech Diplomacy Global Executive Program
Focus Areas
Where the Council concentrates its work
For its 2027–2028 mandate, the Council concentrates its work on five focus areas:
01. AI governance interoperability.
Mapping and bridging the regulatory models emerging in the United States, the European Union, China, and the Global South, so that divergence does not become fragmentation.
02. AI capability and access.
The international politics of sovereign AI strategies and equitable access to AI capability, in coordination with TDGI’s broader tech diplomacy work on compute, semiconductors, and data flows.
03. AI in diplomatic practice.
How foreign ministries and international organizations adopt AI tools for negotiation, consular services, analysis, and crisis response, responsibly and effectively.
04. AI safety and multilateral institutions.
The role of the UN system, UNESCO, and the international summit process in managing frontier AI risks, and how states can engage them meaningfully.
05. Corporate AI diplomacy.
Engaging frontier AI companies as diplomatic actors: how governments negotiate with labs, and how companies build responsible diplomatic functions.
HOW WE WORK
The AI Diplomacy Council brings together former ministers and ambassadors, senior officials, AI researchers, and industry leaders, selected for expertise and geographic balance across every region of the world.
The Council convenes its annual plenary at the Tech Diplomacy Global Forum in Paris and meets virtually throughout the year. Its members contribute to the Global Technology Diplomacy Report, advise governments through TDGI’s advisory services, and support the AI curriculum of the Tech Diplomacy Global Executive Program.
Each year, the Council selects a small number of priority questions and produces practical outputs: briefings that a foreign ministry can act on, frameworks a negotiator can use, and recommendations that connect the worlds of AI research and diplomatic practice.
Who should join the Council
Membership in the AI Diplomacy Council is by application and invitation. We welcome candidates who bring one or more of the following:
- Senior diplomatic or government experience with technology portfolios, such as Tech Ambassadors, digital ministers, and senior negotiators
- Recognized expertise in AI research, governance, or policy
- Leadership experience in AI or technology companies with international engagement
- Perspectives from regions underrepresented in global AI debates
Council members serve in their personal capacity for a renewable two-year term, aligned with the Council’s mandate. The Council maintains geographic, gender, and sectoral balance as a matter of principle: AI diplomacy cannot be shaped by a handful of capitals alone.
Applications for the 2026–2028 mandate are open until 30 September 2026.
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