Much attention today is focused on rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) at national and global levels. On September 4-5 in Rome, the United Nations (UN) convened global thought leaders, policymakers, technologists, academics, faith leaders, and development practitioners to continue exploring how AI is reshaping human development and the future of societies. The results of their discussions will be part of a technology AI debate during the 81st United Nations General Assembly. Much of that discussion is likely to focus on possible negative scenarios and possibly creating a new UN mechanism to coordinate or regulate frontier agentic artificial intelligence technologies.
But this technology can advance the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015, in both general and in specific ways.
One Health is a golden opportunity because it recognizes the interdependence of human, animal, plant, and environmental health, providing a doable pathway to strengthen communities and local systems. The many existing and rapidly advancing AI models developed by Anthropic, OpenAI, and others can provide critical assistance to communities everywhere, enabling them to better operationalize One Health principles and build resilience from the ground up.
In this regard, the World One Health Congress, held on September 4-7 in its ninth edition, brought together a global community of experts. A Joint Statement and Call for Action urges, in part, “world leaders, national governments, intergovernmental bodies, and relevant global conferences to … formally recognize that integrating human, animal, plant, and ecosystem health is vital to global health security, disease prevention, and resilience.”
“Beyond symbolic acknowledgment,” the statement continues, “we call on decision-makers to include One Health principles in national, regional, and inter-governmental negotiations, thereby translating these into concrete, equitable and inclusive laws and regulations, cross-sectoral budgets, and binding commitments across all areas of health, health security, climate, animal, ecosystem, and environmental policy.”
Integrated surveillance, community engagement, and cross-sector cooperation need higher priority and greater investment. Prevention and preparedness work best when communities shape the solutions themselves. Artificial Intelligence can support this vision by helping communities detect risks earlier, understand them more clearly, and prevent, prepare for, and respond to them more effectively.
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Existing AI models can already ingest and analyze heterogeneous data streams, including clinical reports, animal health records, environmental sensor data, satellite imagery, and community observations. They can identify anomalies that might indicate emerging threats, such as unusual clusters of respiratory illness in livestock, changes in mosquito populations, or early signs of antimicrobial resistance in wastewater. These capabilities can help communities detect problems before they escalate, giving local leaders time to intervene.
Community engagement is critical to addressing One Health objectives. AI can help strengthen participatory surveillance systems that allow community members to report observations through mobile apps or local networks. Further, AI can analyze locally generated reports, identify patterns, and integrate them with other data sources, bridging the gap between scientific evidence and lived experience.
Communities are the foundation of global health security. AI can strengthen their resilience and preparedness for future challenges through One Health. The question is whether there will be the political commitment and investment to have AI help put One Health into practice at the community level. That is where our future health is shaped every day.
The UN General Assembly is an occasion for countries to surprise us and unite around action, not just words.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com
