Apolitical Day 2026

Will 2026 mark a breaking point, or a turning point? With governments facing increasingly existential threats, that question sat at the heart of Apolitical Day. More than 300 senior leaders spent the day exploring what governments need to become to navigate the decade ahead. Topics ranged from climate, security, AI and advanced technologies, to the role of the state and the future of work.

Baroness May, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, opened the day in conversation with Apolitical co-founder and CEO Robyn Scott, on the kind of leadership this decade demands. She warned that leaders now work in a world where “everybody expects not just instant answers, but easy answers,” and that time to think has become harder to protect.

General Sir Nick Carter, former Chief of the Defence Staff, and historian James Holland traced the road to war, past and present, imploring us to build a bolder vision for what the future should look like. Professor Mariana Mazzucato discussed her new book, The Common Good Economy, arguing that governments should stop casting themselves as there to de-risk, enable and facilitate, and should instead share risks and rewards with the private sector. 

Six debaters argued the motion “Governments Should Redirect Efforts from the Climate Crisis Towards AI Risks.” The judges split two to two, leaving the decision to the room, and the audience voted against the motion. The opposition’s case rested on climate disasters already costing lives today, and on the physical infrastructure that AI itself depends on, which heatwaves have already knocked offline. 

Author and economist Daniel Susskind, interviewed by Lella Violet Halloum, shared his view that we should ask young people what problems they want to solve, instead of what job they want to do. He was adamant that we should not be looking at AI and advanced technologies as objectively good or bad, but rather that we need to help teach younger generations how to leverage their power responsibly and for the greater good. Endurance athlete Richard Parks closed the day sharing some deeply personal reflections about his career, his current fears about the state of the world, and encouraging us to build our inner resilience in order to face the decade ahead.

Some of the day’s most candid conversations happened behind closed doors. Under the Chatham House Rule, guests joined roundtables on resilience hosted by the London School of Economics, Wellcome and Quadrature Climate Foundation, States of Change, the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA), Climate Policy Radar and the NATO Defense College. They also joined global briefings on AI with speakers from Ofcom and the UK’s Sovereign AI Unit, the states of Pennsylvania and Maryland, British International Investment, Mastercard and Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence. A smaller group took part in a private simulation on AGI preparedness with the University of Cambridge.

Across the day, themes began to emerge. The first was trust, which came up as the main obstacle in sessions on resilience and AI alike. Roundtable guests argued that trust in government is rebuilt locally, through small, visible wins. The AI briefings kept returning to whether the public trusts the people wielding the technology. 

The second was how hard it is to choose. The debate’s split judging panel mirrored a wider disagreement in the room. Some guests argued that multilateral cooperation has stalled and that energy belongs in national and local action. Others warned against giving up on the global agreements that have already brought projected warming down. 

The third challenged a common assumption: that governments’ main problem is speed. Maggie Johnson, Global Head of Google.org, argued that governments will never match the pace of technology, and shouldn’t try. Jaime de Bourbon de Parme of the OECD suggested that the measure of success should be direction. The roundtable on anticipatory leadership reached a similar answer, which is to start preparing earlier.

Throughout the day, guests added to a to-do list for the future of governments. We’re now building that list to inform what we do next. It will also act as the starting point for building the agenda for Apolitical Day 2027, starting with the question the debate left open: when shocks compete for finite attention, how should governments choose what to act on?

Speaking after the event, Apolitical CEO and Co-founder Robyn Scott said:

“Last year, I wondered what my children would grow up to do. This year, I found myself wondering what world they’ll live in. What gave me hope at Apolitical Day was a room that held the risks and the opportunities at the same time. I’m in a lot of rooms with ambition and a lot with pragmatism, but very few with both. The to-do list we’re building will help define what that looks like in practice, and we’ll be taking it to our network of more than half a million public servants.”