I’ve been watching the public conversation about AI evolve since I was a young science fiction fan in the 1970s, and in recent years I’ve noticed a fascinating shift in what keeps people up at night.

In 2014, when Nick Bostrom published his book Superintelligence, everyone’s first reaction to artificial general intelligence, or AGI, was pure Terminator panic — “Isn’t it going to kill everyone?”

As 2026 began, Ugandans and Iranians were plunged into digital darkness with authorities seeking to crack down on dissent by blocking internet communication.

This kind of cyber control is a growing trend. In 2025, 28 internet blackouts cost economies about $19.7 billion, a 156% increase from 2024, a new report from monitoring firm Top10VPN found. 

A great idea in theory, recycling is a pain in practice – a dirty job that relies on people to sift plastics from glass, sort soggy paper from rotten vegetables and root out hazardous items before they get tipped into fast-filling dumps.

Now artificial intelligence (AI) is here promising help, bringing potentially the biggest shakeup of the trash industry in decades.

Wads of cash, speedboats, booze and mobile phones are just some of the perks flaunted at young people on TikTok by illegal armed groups in Colombia looking to recruit fighters to their ranks.

Context identified more than 100 active TikTok accounts that appear to be run by members of groups that include the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as right-wing paramilitary groups like the Gaitanist Army of Colombia (EGC).

The Myanmar military’s digital oppression is no longer a local or isolated crisis. It is reaching an unprecedented level of tyranny that may now rank among the world’s most extreme forms of digital authoritarianism.

The military has announced plans to hold a general election on December 28, which has been widely regarded as a sham to keep the military in power.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) swelled in the United States in the past year, from its rise in immigration enforcement to the growth of so-called grief tech that creates realistic facsimiles of deceased loved ones.

What were the major trends in 2025 and what’s in store for 2026?

From internet shutdowns to the rise of AI, hyper-surveillance to protest via social media, digital technology is shaping lives and upending business as usual – for better and for worse.

Experts say that striking a balance between regulation and innovation will become harder in coming years, as governments and firms invest in artificial intelligence (AI), with consequences for jobs, mental health and the climate.

Biometric IDs are being used to grant access to government services from medical treatment to voting registration across Africa, and those without digital identities are being left behind, a new report said.

The study by the African Digital Rights Network (ADRN), in collaboration with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), analysed the spread of biometric IDs across 10 countries.

Businesses worldwide are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence but are failing to identify and mitigate its risks to society and the environment, according to a report by the AI Company Data Initiative, the world’s largest dataset on corporate adoption of machine learning.

The November report reviews publicly available data on AI policy and adoption in more than 1,000 companies across North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, spanning 13 different sectors.

Albania’s new public procurement minister, an AI-generated bot named Diella, may be impervious to bribes and political pressure but experts doubt the world’s first virtual cabinet member will be immune to mistakes or manipulation.

“This is huge and it could actually set a precedent,” Bojana Zorić, a policy analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies told Context.