AI Summit | Democratisation must mean power, not just access

The India AI Impact Summit can help redefine global AI governance not as a contest between states and corporations, but as a democratic project rooted in public agency

The India AI Impact Summit starts on February 16. Organised by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity), the Government of India, it brings together over 30,000 participants from over 100 countries. With the stated objectives of giving voice to the Global South, the summit seeks to position India as a regional leader to negotiate with the powerful tech giants of the Global North. The AI Impact Summit follows the AI Action Summit in France in 2025, and the AI Safety Summit in the United Kingdom in 2023.

To address the complex problem of AI development, deployment, and governance, Meity has divided countries into working groups around seven interconnected Chakras (energy centres for meditation). The ‘Democratising AI Resources’ working group is tasked with exploring access and affordability of foundational AI resources for all. Its remit includes promoting AI infrastructure and data as global public goods, enabling distributed innovation, and supporting international co-operation, capacity building, and knowledge exchange. 

The inclusion of ‘democratisation’ on the agenda is a welcome signal. However, when framed narrowly as access — more users, more applications, more markets — it risks reducing people to consumers, rather than recognising them as citizens with rights: individuals and communities capable of negotiating, contesting, and collectively shaping how AI influences their lives.

This conflation of access with ‘democracy’ is insufficient, even outright problematic. It does not take into account the fundamentals of democracy, which is the power of the people to decide, and design the distribution of resources, power, and value. As AI shifts where power lies and how it is exercised, democratic control cannot be reduced to top-down political regulation or investment mandates. It demands a focus on participatory models of democracy that provide space for diverse perspectives, new ideas, negotiation, and collective scrutiny of AI power. 

On the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit, scholars and practitioners in the growing field of participatory AI are gathering to share evidence and insights on how affected people can have a voice — from national AI policy to last-mile implementations of AI tools. 

This work is vital to building a narrative of meaningful public participation in the democratic shaping of AI. Too often, ‘participation’ — through procedural exercises rather than a political one — has meant short consultations, limited surveys, or pilot projects with little influence. Communities may be asked for input, but are rarely given authority. Where firms have engaged the public, they often focus on their home country, despite deploying platforms globally. Participation without power is performance.

Across the Global South, AI is promoted as a solution to challenges in healthcare, education, agriculture, and welfare. The Global South is opening its markets, datasets, and land resources to participate, even compete. However, communities are questioning systems that shape their access to public services, manage their data, and influence their opportunities, often without meaningful consent. The growing protests against data centres show that backlash is imminent in the absence of democratic participation. 

India is uniquely positioned in this debate, with a long and hard-won history of participatory governance. From the Right to Information (RTI) Act, which empowers citizens to scrutinise State action, to social audits under the Right to Work that enable public accountability and co-designed mechanisms of evaluation. These audits, incorporated into government schemes, offer a template for collaborative public accountability that can and must extend to AI.

In this context, the India AI Impact Summit — the first hosted by a Global South country — has the opportunity and responsibility to push for a truly people-centric model of AI governance that reclaims democratisation as the power to choose, not simply the opportunity to use. Democratisation must mean participation and agency, exercised through the AI lifecycle. Involving frontline workers to gauge public opinion, creating evidence and accountability through social audits, and ensuring iterative multilingual community evaluations can make AI not just ‘for the people’ but also ‘by the people’.

The India summit can elevate participation as a critical principle, one that is necessary for the true democratisation of AI. If the summit succeeds in foregrounding these issues, it can help redefine global AI governance not as a contest between states and corporations, but as a project rooted in public agency. The path India chooses will matter beyond its borders.

Astha Kapoor is with Aapti Institute, and Tim Davies is with Connected By Data. Both are co-chairs of the Participatory AI Research Symposium 2026.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH)