“AI for Youth, by Youth”: Why Young People Must Shape the Future of AI Governance

What happens when students are told for years that “Wikipedia does not count as a source” only to then be handed generative AI tools without question? The result is confusion and a missed opportunity to critically shape our digital futures.

Author: Sophia Longwe, Project Manager Policy, Wikimedia Deutschland

At the third UNESCO Global Forum on the Ethics of AI in Bangkok, Sophia Longwe from Wikimedia Deutschland had the opportunity to speak on the panel “AI for Youth, AI by Youth.” Speakers were from Bangladesh, Namibia, Mexico, Japan, the United Kingdom or Germany, and it was clear to everyone that AI is already transforming how we learn, work, and participate in society. And yet, young people are rarely invited to shape how these technologies are governed. Here is her report.

Working in public policy around digital technologies, I often come back to one central question: what kind of infrastructures do we want, and who gets to shape them? Reflecting on my own experiences in school and university, I remember how Wikipedia was routinely dismissed as an unreliable source. Fast forward a few years, and educational institutions are now integrating generative AI tools without any critical reflection. This shift reveals a deeper problem: we are expected to adapt to emerging technologies, but excluded from the rooms where these technologies are designed, regulated, and deployed.

What career should I pursue?

In Germany, AI already influences decisions in education, employment, and public services invisibly and with little transparency. While the EU AI Act is an important step, it did not meaningfully include youth perspectives in its development. That is a missed chance to shape policies that will profoundly affect our futures.

Of course, there is enormous potential in AI beyond the hype of generative tools. AI could support personalized learning, improve public administration, and even help strengthen democratic participation. But to achieve this, we must move away from the mindset that AI is a silver bullet for every problem. Instead, we need to invest in contextual, networked, and public-interest-driven information systems.

A recent example in Germany makes this clear: the Federal Employment Agency decided to add a generative AI interface to its fragmented databases to help young people with career guidance. The chatbot is expected to answer life-changing questions, such as ‘What career should I pursue?’ But generative AI is not a knowledge base; it’s a probabilistic model. It generates plausible-sounding, but often inaccurate, responses. The result is a system that invents careers, contradicts itself, and risks misleading young people at critical decision points. That is not meaningful digital transformation but simply confusion, dressed up as innovation. And it comes at a time when young people are already navigating multiple crises in a volatile world: climate change, digital divides, and difficult job markets around the world.

The risks of AI are not theoretical. In schools, housing, recruitment, and other essential areas, algorithmic systems often lack transparency, oversight, and accountability. These systems do not just replicate existing injustices but scale them. And it is precisely young people, particularly from marginalized communities, who are most affected and least involved in shaping these technologies.

Co-creating with young people

That is why we need genuine co-creation. Youth engagement must go beyond symbolic consultations and become structural participation. We should be active agents in shaping the digital infrastructures that shape our lives. This also means taking data justice and epistemic justice seriously. We need to shift from treating people as data objects to recognizing them as informed, contextualized data subjects. It matters who we are, where we come from, and how our knowledge and histories shape digital realities. Hence, we need more collective ownership of the infrastructures that govern information.

This is where the Wikimedia movement offers a real alternative. Unlike most large platforms, Wikipedia is not driven by engagement metrics or profit. It’s the only non-commercial Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) recognized under the EU Digital Services Act. Projects like Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons are transparent, multilingual, fact-based, and community-governed. They show what it looks like to build participatory knowledge infrastructures that serve the public interest and the common good.

At Wikimedia Germany, we carry this ethos into our policy work by supporting the Youth Internet Governance Forum Germany. Through this initiative,  young people are empowered to participate meaningfully in national and global internet governance. As part of the Youth Internet Governance Forum Germany, I had the privilege of contributing to the Strategic Foresight Task Force on Global AI Governance at Germany’s Ministry for Digital and State Modernization. We regularly participate in consultations at the International Telecommunication Union’s Council Working Group on the Internet, where we advocate for multilingualism, digital inclusion, and youth representation. These efforts were recently recognized in the Internet Society’s and ICANN’s report titled ‘Footprints of 20 Years of the Internet Governance Forum’, which highlighted the critical role of Youth Internet Governance Forums in shaping global digital policy. Whether it is co-organizing a Youth Conference at the German Foreign Office, hosting workshops on the Global Digital Compact and WSIS+20 review (World Summit on the Information Society), or engaging in complex technical fora like ICANN or the IETF, young people are not just the future of digital governance but already shaping it.

But for this engagement to be meaningful, it must go beyond visibility. Youth contributions must be structurally integrated into policymaking. That means building capacity early, co-creating agendas, and ensuring that young voices are reflected in laws, strategic foresight processes, and international negotiations. Too often, youth participation is confined to side sessions that are disconnected from the real decision-making. We need to break down these silos and avoid duplicative, fragmented processes that waste resources and reinforce exclusion.

To make AI governance more inclusive, we must move youth and civil society from the margins to the center. Youth initiatives are essential in that mission as spaces where everyone, not just companies or governments, has the legitimacy to shape digital futures.