From the Rostrum
Provisional Data as of 2026-09-30 11:52:56 UTC. dv2. 194 Member State statements from the 81st session.

The 81st General Debate · 22–26 and 28 September 2026

From the Rostrum

What Member States said at the 81st General Debate, read against eight decades of speeches. 194 statements this year; 419,279 words.

Artificial intelligence became a majority subject

In 2026, 61.9% of the 194 statements delivered from this rostrum used the phrase artificial intelligence. A year earlier it was 28.4% — a rise of 33.4 percentage points in a single session.

That is the 7th largest single-session rise of any term tracked here since 1946. It is not the largest, and what sits above it is the interesting part.

Largest rises in a single session, 1946–2026
TermChangeSession
2030 Agenda+58.6 pp2015
Development Decade+54.4 pp1962
New International Economic Order+48.8 pp1974
Pact for the Future+35.9 pp2024
ceasefire*+35.7 pp1970
Agenda 21+33.5 pp1992
artificial intelligence+33.4 pp2026

Five of the six larger rises are documents the Assembly had just adopted: the 2030 Agenda in September 2015, the Pact for the Future in September 2024, Agenda 21 at Rio in June 1992, the New International Economic Order in May 1974, the Development Decade in December 1961. Delegations spoke about a text they had agreed, in the session they agreed it. The sixth, ceasefire in 1970, is an ordinary word.

Artificial intelligence is neither. No resolution created it and no session adopted it, and it still moved further in one year than almost anything the Assembly has written about itself.

0%35%70%19461970199020102026
artificial intelligence · peak 2026, 61.9% of 194 statements

The phrase is not new. Its first recorded use from this rostrum was in 1983, by Singapore. It then went essentially unspoken for three decades.

The earliest uses, with the sentence each came from
  1. 1983 · SGP …fields of basic science as genetic engineering and biotechnology and artificial intelligence will also have a far- reaching impact. 122. A further change that we…
  2. 2016 · ISR …ter, in cybersecurity and in the fusion of big data, connectivity and artificial intelligence — that fusion that is changing our world in every way. Israel leads t…
  3. 2016 · SVK …still cannot find their way into a classroom. Our phones, powered by artificial intelligence, are speaking to us, but one in 10 people on this planet does not hav…

Against what the Assembly usually talks about

A term that rises quickly means little without terms that do not. Each line below is the share of statements using that term, session by session, on the same scale.

artificial intelligence

0%35%70%19461970199020102026
artificial intelligence · peak 2026, 61.9% of 194 statements

61.9% of statements in 2026 · first used 1983

Sustainable Development Goal*

0%40%80%19461970199020102026
Sustainable Development Goal* · peak 2016, 78.3% of 194 statements

30.4% of statements in 2026 · first used 1994

peace*

0%50%100%19461970199020102026
peace* · peak 1946, 100.0% of 39 statements

97.9% of statements in 2026 · first used 1946

Security Council reform

0%10%20%19461970199020102026
Security Council reform · peak 1997, 15.9% of 176 statements

5.7% of statements in 2026 · first used 1993