Today, artificial intelligence plays a role in billions of people’s lives. Sometimes unnoticed but often with profound consequences, it transforms our societies and challenges what it means to be human. AI can provide millions of students with support to complete secondary education, fill an additional 3.3 million jobs, and, more urgently, help us tackle the spread and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with multiple advantages, these technologies also generate downside risks and challenges, derived from malicious use of technology or deepening inequalities and divides.