Excellences,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A year ago, we all gathered for the previous AI for Good Summit, and today we meet again at a time when digital transformation is accelerating even more rapidly – yet not equally.

According to the ITU, one in three people worldwide remains offline – most of them in rural and low-income countries.

Nearly 2.6 billion people still lack access to the Internet, and only 26 percent of people in low-income countries use it at all.

The World Bank adds that fewer than one in five people in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to broadband, limiting not only connectivity, but also the capacity to participate in the digital and AI revolutions. We are entering in the AI generation, but we need to seriously address the issue of the people that are being left behind – we need to address the digital divide.

This digital divide is becoming a development divide.

If we allow these gaps to persist, the promises of artificial intelligence to reduce poverty, improve resilience and drive innovation will remain out of reach for those who need it most.

Over the past year, AI has penetrated our economies, our societies, and our daily lives even further.

The “AI revolution” is reshaping the world we live in.

And while it holds immense promise to improve lives, reduce inequalities, and bridge the urban-rural divide, that promise is at risk, unless we steer AI in the right direction.

At FAO we firmly believe in turning challenges into opportunities!

And we are therefore working to drive the right thinking on AI – one that is responsible, ethical, and empowering for farmers, consumers, and communities, especially local communities.

We recognized early on the transformative potential of AI in global agrifood systems to support them to become more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.

AI can, among others:

  • One: enable precision agriculture, helping smallholder farmers and family farmers at large, grow more with less;
  • Two: enhance resource management and climate adaptation;
  • Three: optimize global food supply chains and forecast extreme weather and disease outbreaks; and
  • Four: replace manual food inspections with faster, automated, AI-powered systems to ensure that food is traceable, accessible and affordable.

These are not abstract promises, we are already putting them into action!

Through our advanced remote sensing and geospatial platforms, AI allows us to rapidly analyze drought, water stress, crop types, land use and forest management.

We are leveraging open-source Big Data to track food security threats before they become crises.

Predictive models help farmers decide when to sow, harvest, or bring th goods to the market.

Our partnership with Digital Green brings AI-powered advisory services directly to farmers, is now available in local languages, and tailored to local crops and contexts.

With generative AI, we have reduced the cost of farmer advisory services from USD 30  to USD 3 per farmer – and with the potential to decrease further to just 30 cents per farmer. AI works! It is not only about beautiful storytelling, it really matters to the poor smallholder farmers.

We have also extended this to our Farmer Field Schools, where chatbots in local languages provide real-time, relevant advice on climate-resilient farming.

As we approach FAO’s 80th anniversary in October this year, FAO reaffirms its role as the world’s knowledge organization for food and agriculture.

Since 2018, our Open Access policies have made reliable data freely available to all – from researchers to policy makers to farmers.

Now, we are going even further. One of our most ambitious initiatives is a specialized AI “knowledge bot”, built on our repository of nearly 150,000 scientific publications.

We are also collaborating on the world’s first agrifood-focused foundation model, to deliver tailored AI support – from planting to market access – to end-users across agrifood systems.

As a founding member of the Digital Public Goods Alliance, at FAO we know that inclusive solutions are not just about infrastructure – they are about people, governance and ethics.

That is why in 2020, FAO joined the Rome Call for AI Ethics, together with the Holy See, Microsoft and IBM, to champion an ethical AI that respects human dignity, upholds rights, and serves both humanity and the planet, founded on a commitment to “do no harm.”

Responsible governance of AI is essential to delivering the Four Betters: Better Production, Better Nutrition, a Better Environment, and a Better Life – leaving no one behind.

Responsible AI – which is accessible to all – is not just the right way to tackle hunger, poverty, and climate challenges – it is the only way. It is a solutions provider.

FAO invites all of you to partner with us – to ensure that the future of AI is inclusive, transparent, and just.

Together, we can deliver on the promise of AI for Good.

We are now moving from the chart to the deep thinking, deep design and deep seek, and we are going into deep blue areas which come from farmers, agrifood systems and rural affairs – it is the deep blue of big data. It is our future.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Now, together with my esteemed colleague the ITU Secretary-General, I am pleased to launch the Robotics for Good – Youth Challenge 2025–26.

This global initiative empowers youth aged 12 to 18 to design and build robots that address one of the most urgent issues of our time: food security – food availability, food accessibility and food affordability.

FAO is proud to be a strategic partner in this challenge by providing the technical guidance, mentorship and support needed through the FAO Youth Innovation Lab and Transformative Research models.

This challenge is not just about robotics, it is about empowering youth to become agents of change in the fight against hunger.

By linking digital skills with agrifood system transformation, we are investing in a future that is smarter, greener and more inclusive.

FAO is committed to ensuring that the next generation of innovators is equipped to build a world free from hunger.

It is our future!

Thank you.

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