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From 6-10 July 2026 we were part of a team running a Public AI Voice and Engagement (PAVE) Booth at the AI For Good Global Summit Expo in Geneva, Switzerland. The Booth had been pulled together by a coalition of not-for-profit, research, and civil society organisations seeking an opportunity to promote (among the AI hype that otherwise pervaded the Expo) including public voice in decisions around AI.
As we start to explore how the Citizens’ Track on AI might catalyse and support community dialogues on AI around the world I’ve thinking about the kinds of agendas, activities and resources that we might need to create or curate.
Broadly, I’ve been thinking of this in terms of three modalities: short community conversations, longer and more structured community assemblies, and much more formal citizens’ assemblies.
These each differ in terms of length, recruitment, preparation and facilitation required, and the kinds of outputs they might generate.
The Cabinet Statement on Rewiring the State was released at the end of July, with a strong emphasis on devolution. It’s striking how it takes the phrase “Rewiring the State” in a very different direction to the technology-focused themes of the similarly named Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s report on delivering digital government, the Global Government Forum’s report on government transformation, or Darren Jones’ speech on delivering a new digital state.
A venue isn’t just the space where you hold an event or an activity – it’s part of the planning about how the session will run. A good venue will enhance the experience of participants and that likely benefits what you get out of it too. A poorly selected venue can be a barrier to engagement – if people even come at all. At CONNECTED by DATA we’ve tried to be intentional in our venue selection for every in person event or activity we’ve hosted (or in fact even if it is in person or online and where online…more on that later).
Since July 2024, we’ve been running a monthly community of practice for people who are trying to engage the public around data and AI. That was part of our project, ‘Giving communities a powerful say in public sector data and AI projects’, funded by the Mohn Westlake Foundation, which has now come to an end. (You can find lots more resources from that, such as case studies and event write-ups, here.)
Between July 2024 and March 2026, we ran a community of practice for people who are or are wanting to engage and involve the public around data and AI. You can read a summary of the seventeen monthly(ish) meetings we held in a separate blogpost.
Between July 2025 and April 2026, as part of our project to build worker power to shape public sector AI, Connected by Data and the TUC worked with nine education unions on an action learning programme to test how to catalyse the union movement’s capacity to understand, negotiate and advocate on AI.
This work threw up several lessons that apply more generally to the adoption of AI across the public sector – the risks and benefits; the challenges and opportunities; and the roles that workers can and should play in AI’s development, deployment and evaluation – which I’ve thrown together into this listicle.
I joined Connected by Data in January 2023, just months after OpenAI unloaded ChatGPT on the world. Suddenly it seemed that the politics of technology was on everyone’s lips and mine - though often in very different ways.
Thank you to everyone who has been getting in touch to support the Citizens Track.
We were deeply disappointed not to be able to connect with many of you in person last week due to the troubling cancellation of RightsCon, but I am happy in this update to share news on how you can input to our Case Book to showcase existing public participation on AI, as well as an invite to an online update call next week (Tuesday 12th May, 1pm UTC) where we will be sharing more about plans for activities at the UN Global Dialogue / AI for Good in July.
When I set up Connected by Data, I also stated my intention that this organisation would have a maximum lifespan of 3-5 years. We are now at the end of our fourth year, which means we have at maximum one more year to go.
At 1:45 IST on Friday 20th February, at the British Pavilion in Hall 14 of the Bharat Mandapam complex in New Delhi (hosting the India AI Impact Summit), something exceptional happened. For a few minutes, voices of students from a school in Luton played out of speakers, and delegates nearby had a chance to hear their nuanced views about how generative AI in education affects them, and how they want to see it governed in future. This moment formed part of a panel curated by the University of Sheffield sharing work on public voices in AI, and showing videos and photos of everyday citizens sharing their views on AI.
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