Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than governments can regulate or understand it, global policy experts have warned, calling for urgent new frameworks to manage its geopolitical, economic, and ethical consequences.

"AI is the most disruptive geopolitical force of the decade," said Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group. "Every major government is struggling to understand what it means for national power, for security, and for trust in political institutions - and none of them are moving fast enough."

Speaking during a high-level policy dialogue in Abu Dhabi this week, Bremmer said AI's rise is fundamentally different from past technological revolutions because of the speed at which it is reshaping economies and decision-making. "This is not like climate change, where you have decades to respond,” he said. "The pace here is exponential - and governments are built for incremental.”

Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.

Baroness Joanna Shields, former UK minister for Internet Safety and Security, and current Executive Chair of the Responsible AI Future Foundation, agreed that political systems were“reactive by design” and ill-equipped to anticipate rapid disruption.“We legislate after the damage is done,” she said.“AI doesn't wait for elections or policy cycles. It learns, adapts, and scales in real time.”

Brad Smith, Vice-Chair and President of Microsoft, added that the risk lies not only in how AI is used, but also in who has access to it.“The world is dividing into those who have the compute power and data to build AI, and those who don't,” he noted.“If we don't act now, the AI divide could become as serious as the economic divide.”

He warned that even within countries, the technology gap could deepen inequality between urban and rural populations.“You can't have an AI economy if people don't have electricity, connectivity, or education,” Smith said.“Bridging that infrastructure divide is just as important as building the next model.”

Bremmer said these disparities will have far-reaching political consequences, with AI shifting global power away from governments and toward corporations that control the underlying technology.“The private sector is leading the revolution, but the public sector still writes the rules - or tries to. The problem is that the rules are always written too late.”

Eric Xing, president of Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), argued that such complexity demands entirely new governance structures.“We need institutions that can think beyond election cycles; AI isn't just a policy issue - it's a civilisation issue.”

Bremmer agreed, suggesting that countries may soon require what he called“ministries for the future” to anticipate and manage AI's cross-sectoral impact.“This isn't something you solve with a single regulation,” he said.“You need a whole-of-society approach - education, security, infrastructure, and ethics all at once.”

As AI systems increasingly shape global economies and public discourse, the panellists agreed that the true test of leadership will be political imagination.“We've had industrial revolutions before,” Shields concluded.“But never one where the machines start thinking for themselves. The question is whether our politics can learn to do the same.”

MENAFN04112025000049011007ID1110294877