Chairs letter

The second edition of the Participatory AI Research & Practice Symposium (PAIRS) took place online and in New Delhi on 17th and 18th February, bringing together insights from over 90 studies and projects exploring how public participation can shape the future of AI development, governance and resistance. Through our official AI Impact Summit Pre-event and two days of PAIRS presentations, we directly engaged over 250 participants from across the world. Through participants’ social media posts, session recordings and online engagement we are reaching thousands more.

In New Delhi, there was a notable contrast between PAIRS and the main India Impact Summit. The selection of sessions through an open call and peer-review, the intentional creation of time for connection and discussion, and the thematic focus of PAIRS filled a critical gap in programming for the week. It offered space to build community, and interrogate practice, as well as to share ideas and future visions.

It has never been more important to place the voices of communities impacted by AI at the forefront of debates about how we develop, govern and reshape artificial intelligence. Work presented at PAIRS 2026 engaged critically with the regulatory and legal foundations of participation, explored the practical challenges of engaging communities at the last-mile, and examined the role of creative methods in engaging diverse publics in dialogue around AI.

We were struck by both the depth and breadth of submissions and presentations this year: evidence of a maturing field. We were also struck by feedback from participants about the value of this space alongside the AI Summits, and the sense of a growing community of practitioners, working with diverse methods, and in different contexts, but with a shared commitment to democratic approaches to AI. We were also delighted to be able to host a panel for the UNESCO Global Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Academic Network on AI Ethics and Policy as part of the PAIRS online programme: demonstrating the potential of PAIRS as a connecting space for related programmes of work.

As we explored in our op-ed in the Indian Deccan Herald just before the AI Summit, there is an urgent need to articulate a richer conceptualisation of inclusive and democratised AI: moving beyond a focus on democracy as access, to democracy as citizen voice, choice and control. Narratives of participation are vulnerable to co-option, and critical attention is required to protect and extend the participatory turn in AI. The work shared at PAIRS this year, and that PAIRS should continue to bring together, plays a vital role in this.

We are grateful to the fantastic Programme Committee who supported the design of PAIRS this year, and helped us to review over 115 submissions in record time. We are also grateful to AI Collaborative for a one year grant that provided anchor funding for this year's event, and the individual sponsors and voluntary donors to PAIRS, who enabled us to provide travel support for over 20 practitioners and researchers, predominantly from the majority world, to travel to New Delhi, both to present at PAIRS, and to engage with the India AI Impact Summit.

We are also grateful to the Stewards group who have overseen the development of PAIRS this year. After the first edition in Paris last year, we set out working towards a governance structure that can ‘practice what we preach’: establishing a small group with representation from across the world to provide governance support to PAIRS, and exploring a membership structure that allows a wider group to guide decisions about future events. It is still a work in progress, but with the launch of the PAIRS Discord Server as a community space, and plans for a regular community call, we look forward to continued development of a sustainable structure for PAIRS that can be held in trust for, and guided by, the wider community.

As we look ahead, we are excited by plans for another edition of PAIRSx Africa, and plans for ongoing reading groups and community calls, as well as community coordination of activities around the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance. In-line with participant feedback on PAIRS, we also see key opportunities for this growing community to identify and address evidence gaps on participatory AI practice, and to explore new ways of supporting strategic research projects.

We are also committed to making the most of the library of content (posters, presentations and recordings) gathered over our two days in February, and to finding ways to present these to wider audiences. And we look forward to the return of the symposium with PAIRS 2027 alongside the next AI Summit due to be hosted in Switzerland next year.

In participation

Astha Kapoor & Tim Davies

Co-Chairs, PAIRS 2026

Delegate insights

In the chairs report we’ve captured a small selection of the blog posts and LinkedIn write-ups of PAIRS 2026. You can find links to, and extracts from, many of these below:

In 5 things I learned at the participatory AI summit - Jemima Gibbons reflects on the activist nature of participatory research, and the potential of participatory approaches to be fun, joyful, creative, shared - and power-shifting.
Adam Zable blogged Participation and Power in AI Governance: Five Takeaways from PAIRS 2026, built on in a LinkedIn post by Ye Ha Kim
"Can a civil society organization saying No also be part of meaningful participation?" - Stephen Vethman reflects on the importance of ‘No’ as an option in participatory processes around AI. Stephen reflects how an experience of civil society resistance to AI implementation can both ‘activate and embolden’ “critical reflection and integrity questions” within projects.
SETU on LinkedIn: “...Grateful for the thoughtful questions and discussion at PAIRS 2026. These conversations across academia, civil society, and practice are essential if we want AI systems that are not only compliant, but legitimate and trusted.”
Oonah Murphey on LinkedIn: “...The real conversations happened in the margins. I was very happy to speak at PAIRS - Participatory AI Research & Practice Symposium, which was by far the most diverse and representative space I spent time in while I was in Delhi. It was great to hear Susan Oman talk about bringing the public into AI Policy conversations. Shruti Viswanathan talking about participatory approaches in humanitarian contexts. Hannah Ismael talking about Mozilla work with creative practitioners in Hollywood to map impact and possible future of AI technologies on their craft.”
Octavia Field Reid on LinkedIn “...How do we build the necessary, strong, authentic, trilateral bridge between the hardworking participation folks and the policy and industry peeps who stop engaging once they've learnt enough to co-opt our language?”
*Jahnvee Tripathi on LinkedIn: “What stood out most was not just the technical depth of the #conversations, but the seriousness with which responsibility, safety, and institutional design were approached. The agenda reflected a growing recognition that AI is no longer just a technological frontier — it is a governance challengeDiscussions around regulatory architecture, cross-border coordination, and the role of academia in shaping public policy reinforced an important insight: the future of AI will be determined as much by ethical clarity and institutional maturity as by innovation itself.For those working at the intersection of education, policy processes, and emerging technologies, these conversations felt particularly meaningful. They connected learning with lived institutional realities.We are entering a phase where AI leadership will require not only capability, but responsibility.”*
Ye Ha Kim on LinkedIn: “99% of AI "experts" are talking about LLMs. The top 1% are talking about Participatory AI. If we’re building systems that shape the lives of millions, why are "users" treated like an afterthought?”
Faidat Abdullahi on LinkedIn: “I’m grateful to the PAIRS 2026 organising committee and fellow speakers for bringing participation, which is often overlooked, to the forefront of the summit’s conversations.”
Daksha Dixit on LinkedIn reflecting on sharing work work drawing on experience building HealthVaani, an LLM designed for Anganwadi workers at Wadhwani AI: “Grateful to have shared this work at PAIRS, and thankful to [the] team, for creating this community and space for conversations on participatory and equitable AI.”
Farzana Simran Anzarudeen on the Citizen Digital Foundation blog: “Seeing similar negotiations emerge across studies at PAIRS, whether it is school children in the UK articulating their curiosity and scepticism, Hollywood film production workers in the US balancing automation and job security, queer communities in India grappling with safety and surveillance, connected the dots within a broader global phenomenon with AI.”
Shruti Viswanathan on LinkedIn: “I have very many complicated feelings about the AI summit (more on that later)

What I do feel unambiguously positive about is the incredible people I met. All over the globe, we are grappling with overwhelming questions on AI, and slowly pushing for more accountable systems.

Many thanks to PAIRS - Participatory AI Research & Practice Symposium for bringing together a group of smart, kind practitioners looking to move the needle on power and participation in AI.”
Marie Mirsch on LinkedIn: “there seems to be broad agreement on one core issue: when decisions potentially affect human lives, the public must be meaningfully involved. The more difficult question is: what does that actually look like in practice? … Of course we are not alone in raising this question. The symposium was filled with amazing presentations, upcoming projects, and great reflections on ongoing challenges.”