In the year since last year’s ATTENTION: Govern or be Governed convened 250 leaders in Montreal, the governance question has shifted under our feet. AI systems are no longer arriving; they are deploying, at scale, into the core functions of democratic life: decision-making in government, information production in journalism, knowledge work in the academy, organizing in civil society.

What follows will be a period of rapid social transformation, and with it the conditions to strain or social fabric: labour market shocks, epistemic disruption, reorganized public services, new patterns of political organization and contestation. Sovereignty over democratic institutions is not a given in this moment of rapid change. It is a posture democratic societies must now take, and a project they will have to pursue together.