UN's Guterres urges women to lead AI development for gender equality

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met young women in STEM at the India AI Impact Summit, stressing the crucial need for women to lead in creating AI that serves all and promotes gender equality, in line with the UN's proactive tech strategy.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has highlighted his "inspiring" meeting with young women in STEM at the India AI Impact Summit and emphasised the importance of ensuring they lead in developing artificial intelligence that "serves everyone and advances gender equality". In a post on X, he said, "I enjoyed meeting these inspiring young women in STEM at the AI Summit in India. With AI on the rise, we must ensure women are not just included - but leading - in developing artificial intelligence that serves everyone & advances gender equality." https://x.com/antonioguterres/status/2025395174185095465

UN's Vision for AI and Gender Equality

Under the vision outlined in the UN 2.0 Policy Brief, the Secretary-General is promoting a proactive approach for UN system organizations to use new technologies, such as AI, to support all steps of the innovation process, to address gender inequality, discrimination and bias in artificial intelligence data models, and to invest in predictive and prescriptive analytics, enhanced with machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Call for Fact-Based International Cooperation

On Friday, Guterres called for utilising Artificial Intelligence for the global good and to mitigate challenges being faced by humanity. He urged countries to come together and prepare, protect, and invest in people.

Today, international cooperation is difficult. Trust is strained, and technological rivalry is growing. Addressing Global AI Impact Summit 2026 here in the national capital on the role of science in international AI governance, Gutteres said, "We are barrelling into the unknown. AI innovation is moving at the speed of light, outpacing our collective ability to fully understand it. If we want AI to serve humanity, policy cannot be built on guesswork. It cannot be built on hype or disinformation. We need facts we can trust and share across countries and across sectors. Less noise, more knowledge", he said.

New UN Panel to Bridge AI Knowledge Gap

Guterres highlighted the steps taken by the United Nations around AI, noting the recently formed AI Panel. He said, "The United Nations is building a practical architecture that puts science at the centre of international cooperation on AI. And it starts with the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence. This panel is designed to help close the AI knowledge gap and assess the real impacts of AI across economies and societies, so countries at every level of AI capacity can act with the same clarity. It is fully independent, it is globally diverse, and it is multidisciplinary because AI touches every area of every society. And I'm delighted that the General Assembly of the United Nations confirmed the 40 experts I proposed to Member States. Now the real work begins on a fast track to deliver a first report ahead of the global dialogue on AI governance in July.

The panel will provide a shared baseline of analysis, helping member states move from philosophical debates to technical coordination, and anchor choices in evidence."

He called science-led governance an accelerator for solutions and a way to make progress safer, fairer, and more widely shared.

Global AI Impact Summit in the Global South

The India AI Impact Summit 2026, the first global AI summit hosted in the Global South from February 16-20, had brought together policymakers, industry leaders, academics and civil society representatives to deliberate on responsible AI governance and inclusive technological advancement. (ANI)

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