September 22, 2026, (Inside AI) — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres used his final General Assembly address on Tuesday to demand a multilateral framework for artificial intelligence risk management, warning that global institutions are failing to keep pace with the technology's rapid advance.
Speaking before nearly 130 world leaders gathered in New York, Guterres said countries driving the AI revolution must share safety data and build common safeguards. His call came just as the UN's 15-member Security Council prepared to host AI industry leaders for a briefing on the technology's risks.
The timing underscores a widening gap between AI's commercial acceleration and the slow machinery of international governance. Guterres, whose second five-year term ends on December 31, has spent a decade trying to position the UN as a forum for emerging technology oversight. Major powers have largely bypassed that effort.
"Those countries leading this technological revolution must share information on emerging safety risks, cooperate on testing and evaluation - and work towards common safeguards that protect us all," Guterres told the assembly.
He pressed leaders to "advance the conditions for the responsible pacing of AI and the additional safeguards needed to address risks" and to "work towards a multilateral AI risk management framework, supported by credible and independent oversight."
The push for AI governance has gained fresh momentum from an unexpected quarter. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that Washington had proposed a new AI safety notification mechanism for US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to consider at their summit this week. The proposal emerged from talks on establishing a US-China AI dialogue and would cover AI-related incidents with national security implications.
That bilateral channel could either reinforce or undermine Guterres's multilateral vision. A US-China agreement on AI safety notifications would represent the first concrete mechanism between the world's two leading AI powers. But it would also sideline the broader UN framework Guterres has championed since 2023, when the body created a 39-member advisory group on AI. That group included tech executives, government officials and academics from countries such as the US, Russia and Japan.
The Security Council held its first meeting on AI risks the same year. China warned then that the technology should not become a "runaway horse," while Washington cautioned against using AI to censor or repress populations. Three years later, no binding international agreement has emerged.
Guterres acknowledged the institutional paralysis directly, noting that "our mechanisms for collective action are under growing strain" and that global institutions "continue to reflect the power realities and interests of a largely bygone age."
The criticism lands amid mounting financial pressure on the UN. Washington has withdrawn from several UN agencies and slashed funding, while Trump and others have called the organization bloated and ineffective. The absence of Xi and leaders from South Africa, India and Germany at this year's gathering further illustrated the UN's diminishing pull.
Delegates responded with sustained applause when Guterres defended a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians and demanded that "polluters must pay" for climate change. On the Middle East, where Houthi gains along the Red Sea coast threaten shipping routes and tensions persist in the Strait of Hormuz, he called for "de-escalation and dialogue."
"Together, let's send a clear message from this hall: The fighting must stop. Humanitarian aid must flow. And navigational rights and freedoms must be fully restored in accordance with international law," Guterres said.
The AI governance vacuum Guterres leaves behind is not merely institutional. It reflects a structural shift in how technology policy gets made. Bilateral deals between superpowers, industry-led safety commitments and regional regulations such as the European Union's AI Act have filled the space the UN hoped to occupy.
Whether the Security Council briefing produces any follow-through remains uncertain. The body's five permanent members hold veto power, and AI regulation touches directly on national security and economic competitiveness. Those are precisely the domains where consensus has proven most elusive.
Guterres closed his address with a farewell to the leaders he has worked with over the past decade. "So, on January 1st, when I am no longer Secretary-General, be sure of this. Wherever I will be, whatever I will be doing - I will keep championing the conviction that peace is possible," he said. "I will continue to stand up for the values of the United Nations Charter and I will never, ever give up. Thank you."
The next secretary-general inherits an AI file that has grown more urgent and more fragmented. The US-China notification proposal, if adopted, would create a precedent for bilateral AI safety cooperation. It would not substitute for the global framework Guterres sought. It may, however, prove more durable than anything the UN could have delivered.
