We are living through a period of fast-paced technological change.
Few areas are evolving as rapidly as digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI). Almost daily, new products are launched, new capabilities emerge, and large language models (LLMs) are updated with increasingly powerful functions, bringing huge innovation as well as significant risks. Technologies that seemed experimental only a few years ago are quickly becoming embedded into how we work, communicate access information and assess it.
Society, systems and decision makers are struggling to keep pace. Legislative and judicial systems are facing the difficult challenge of regulating technologies that evolve faster than traditional policy-making processes can respond. Questions around accountability, transparency, privacy, safety, and human rights remain unresolved. The private sector is grappling with this rapid pace of change, balancing innovation with responsible deployment and risk management.
At the same time, a small number of technology corporations are gaining unprecedented influence over the digital infrastructure that shapes our societies. Their platforms determine how information flows, how public debates unfold, how knowledge is accessed, and increasingly, how decisions are made. The concentration of technological power raises important questions about democracy, accountability, transparency and who gets to shape the future.
Technology is not neutral.
The design choices behind digital systems reflect assumptions about whose voices matter, whose risks are prioritised, and whose rights are protected. So where does this leave civil society organisations? This is a question we ask a lot, we see the impacts of these digital tools in our work and the thematic areas we engage in. How will emerging and increasingly established digital technology impact civil society and the work of CSOs?
This raises a fundamental question: who is shaping the AI agenda, and who is ensuring these technologies remain human-centred, rights-based, and guided by the principle of doing no harm?
Civil society has a vital role to play.
For decades, CSOs have amplified the voices of communities that are too often excluded from decision-making and have held power to account. They must bring that same leadership to AI and digital transformation.
Civil society contributes something essential to these debates: a commitment to human rights, accountability, inclusion, and the public interest. As more of our lives move online, CSOs should not only adopt new technologies but also help shape the policies and governance that determine how they are developed and used. This means advocating for transparency, privacy, accessibility, fairness, and responsible innovation.
The future of AI should not be determined solely by governments and technology companies. Communities affected by these technologies must also have a voice. Civil society can bring perspectives often missing from technical discussions, including the lived experiences of marginalised groups, the realities of frontline work, and the need to protect human dignity.
The question is no longer whether AI will transform society, but what kind of digital future we want to create. By combining technological understanding with their commitment to social justice, CSOs can help ensure that AI serves people, not just markets or power.
CSOs also need to ensure they are walking the talk and when advocating for their values, that the digital tools they adopt do not inadvertently cause harm. As we know, many CSOs do not have the financial resources, technical capacity, or access to expertise that large technology companies possess. Many organisations are working with limited budgets and already stretched teams, while trying to understand technologies that are changing faster than they can be studied. Carefully assessing which innovations to embrace and ensuring that they do no harm is essential. CSOs need to not let these discussions and decisions become siloed to the tech team or the one AI specialist in the organisation.
As CSOs increasingly rely on digital tools, they must also confront a difficult reality: technology can create new forms of fragility. Dependence on external platforms, cloud services, and AI providers raises important questions. What happens when a service becomes unavailable? When a provider changes its terms of use? When a system produces inaccurate information? When is an organisation’s data compromised?
These are not hypothetical concerns. Civil society organisations are increasingly targeted by cyber-attacks, because we often hold valuable information and have fewer cybersecurity resources than corporations and public sector. A successful attack can disrupt operations, expose confidential information, be expensive and put individuals at risk.
Civil society has both an opportunity and a responsibility to help shape a future that is equitable, transparent, accountable and centred on people rather than power. This requires organisations to build their own digital capacity while working collectively to influence the systems that increasingly shape our societies.
AI is rapidly transforming the cybersecurity landscape, governments and major companies are investing heavily in AI-powered cyber capabilities, while many civil society organisations are still struggling to fund even basic digital resilience. This is not simply a cybersecurity challenge but a major risk to the communities, activists and vulnerable groups that civil society exists to protect.
AI can now discover software vulnerabilities faster than most organisations can fix them. OpenAI recently revealed that, during a controlled security evaluation, an autonomous AI agent, went ‘rogue’,, by accessing the open web and hacked into an external collaborative open-source platform for AI developers. At the same time, Anthropic will soon introduce Claude Mythos Preview, an advanced general-purpose AI model that can independently find and exploit weaknesses in software faster and on a larger scale than has previously thought possible. For civil society organisations, the window between vulnerabilities being discovered and exploited is shrinking.
Call to Action: Join the collective demand on increased cybersecurity funding!
Recognising this urgency, over 40 civil society organisations leaders have signed the open letter Racing the Cyber Clock: Securing Civil Society before the Mythos Window Closes, led by Protect NGO in cooperation with us, the International Civil Society Centre. The message is clear: digital resilience must become a core investment for civil society, not an afterthought. We encourage ICSOs and CSO to join this collective demand and strengthen our own organisational case for increased cybersecurity funding, resources, and support from donors, governments, and partners.
These are not challenges that any organisation can solve alone. They require collaboration, shared learning and collective action across the sector. At the International Civil Society Centre, we are committed to supporting these conversations through initiatives such as our Digital Dialogues, bringing together civil society leaders, technologists and experts to explore the opportunities and risks of AI and digital transformation.
Now is the time to act. By investing in digital resilience and being active on digital rights and ethical use today, civil society can help ensure that AI strengthens and not undermines its ability to serve people, protect rights and create lasting social change.
