Security Council Report’s policy paper "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, GEOPOLITICS, AND THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL" (September 2026) examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping international peace and security and the Council’s work amid intensifying geopolitical competition over AI resources and standards, uneven Council engagement, and growing operational risks and opportunities; the paper’s purpose is to map key risks and use-cases, assess current Council dynamics and gaps, and propose practical options for a more systematic and anticipatory response, using the maritime domain to illustrate supply‑chain and infrastructure vulnerabilities, and it calls on Council members to mainstream AI across agenda items, strengthen horizon‑scanning, preserve institutional continuity, and draw more systematically on technical expertise.
Key Insights
AI is intensifying geopolitical competition over semiconductors, computing, data, energy, and critical minerals, creating dependencies and exposure to supply disruption, with maritime vulnerabilities salient as over 80 percent of goods by volume move by sea and more than 99 percent of international data traffic runs through submarine cables that face accidental damage and rising concerns about intentional harm.
The paper outlines concrete opportunities for UN peace and security work—from early warning and mediation support to peacekeeping—citing current uses such as DPPA’s AI‑enabled Digital Dialogues and DPO’s Information Integrity tools (Monitoring and Analysis of the Information Environment and Unite Wave) and the roll‑out of Unite Aware, while stressing that efficiency gains must be paired with human judgment, data quality, privacy and security safeguards, and improved digital literacy across missions.
AI lowers barriers to malicious activity and escalates risks across cyber, information, and military domains, including AI‑assisted cyber operations against critical infrastructure, scalable synthetic content and terrorist propaganda noted by the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al‑Qaida monitoring team, and the growing use of increasingly autonomous weapons that challenge international humanitarian law compliance and may compress decision‑making timelines and heighten escalation dangers.
Security Council engagement since the first formal AI meeting in July 2023 has expanded but remains sporadic and politically contested, with no dedicated agenda item or standing reporting, overlapping debates with ICT security and natural‑resource competition, and differing views among members on whether and how the Council should address AI, as illustrated by the chart on page 12 mapping the proliferation of technology‑thematic meetings.
To move from reactive to systematic engagement, the report calls for mainstreaming AI across relevant country‑specific and thematic files, conducting horizon‑scanning for early warning and prevention, improving continuity and institutional memory, and drawing on scientific and technical expertise, and it offers practical options including an Informal Expert Group on Technology, Peace and Security, a voluntary shared‑commitments initiative, greater use of informal and closed formats, and a technology aide‑memoire.
