Who Gets to Shape AI’s Future?

The Digital Tug-of-War

As generative AI evolves at lightning speed, a global power struggle is unfolding over who will control its trajectory. On one side, AI’s booming development is largely driven by private companies—mostly Western tech giants—who possess the financial muscle, computing infrastructure, and data scale to build and train large models. On the other lie governments, international bodies, and civil society organizations pushing for more democratic influence over how AI is governed, who benefits from it, and how risk is managed. The race to define who writes AI’s rules has intensified, prompting new initiatives aimed at ensuring the technology is inclusive, accountable, and not monopolized by the few.

Democratizing the Algorithms

Amid fears of tech-driven inequality and cultural bias, a handful of players are working to embed democratic values into AI development. The EU has taken an early lead with its AI Act, promoting transparency and human rights-aligned guidelines; meanwhile, nonprofits like Mozilla and research orgs such as the Allen Institute for AI are crafting open-source alternatives. These efforts emphasize participatory input, fairness, and global norms. Yet challenges remain: open models still rely on access to hefty compute resources, and creating guardrails without stifling innovation is a delicate balance. The era of AI being shaped solely behind corporate doors may be fading—but the vision of democratic AI is still very much in the making.