3rd Digital Trust Convention – 2026 – Paris
Following the inaugural edition hosted at the OECD in Paris in 2024 and the second edition at the Mila Quebec AI Institute in Montreal last year, the Digital Trust Convention returns to the OECD in Paris for its third edition on 4 December 2026.
Each edition is a step forward: In 2024, the Convention validated the analysis — that challenges associated with AI-enabled content generation and automation could undermine informed public discourse, market transparency, and user agency — and formed a multistakeholder community around the need for a “resilience upgrade” of the digital space. In 2025, that community converged on a shared direction and vision, set out in the Montreal Memorandum.
In 2026, the Convention will turn towards action and operationalisation: incubating and catalysing concrete initiatives, coalitions and instruments that will contribute to evolving our digital environment in a positive and lasting way.
Topics that will receive particular attention this year include establishing privacy-protecting digital identities for people (and AI agents that might act on their behalf), combining digital sovereignty at multiple levels with the benefits of global approaches, empowering human agency, and designing incentive pathways for creating shared knowledge.
The Convention continues to bring together a unique combination of leading thinkers and practitioners from the public and private sectors and a broad range of disciplines to connect, share, learn and engage. This edition’s sessions are designed to produce commitments and working coalitions that outlast the event itself — and to sustain the courageous, positive, even joyful digital future for our shared humanity that the Convention stands for.
The Digital Trust Convention is co-hosted by the Atlantic Council, Bertelsmann Stiftung, the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, KI Park, Mila Quebec AI Institute, and the World Privacy Forum. The Programme Chair is Sebastian Hallensleben, Co-founder of CPDiF – Centre for a Positive Digital Future.
Check back here for further information on this year’s Digital Trust Convention, to be shared soon.
Register for attendance: https://forms.office.com/e/cNMmJxYvSh
2nd Digital Trust Convention – 2025 – Montreal
Building on the success of the inaugural edition hosted at the OECD in Paris, the second edition of the Digital Trust Convention was held at renowned AI research institute Mila in Montreal, on November 6 and 7, 2025.
For more information, please see: Digital Trust Convention 2025 | Mila
1st Digital Trust Convention – 2024 – Paris
15 November 2024, OECD Conference Centre, Paris, France
The Digital Trust Convention explored what is needed for a resilient digital space in which trust and integrity, as the foundation of democratic discourse and effective markets, remain possible in the era of generative AI.
Given the easy availability of AI-automated bots and fakes and their use by commercial, criminal, and geostrategic actors, the Digital Trust Convention looked at how we can:
- Establish trust in people and information and identify approaches, instruments and measures that are effective and sustainable
- Reliably recognise real human beings in the digital space
- Ensure that every citizen/consumer has a fair chance to be heard and have an impact
The Digital Trust Convention brought together a unique combination of leading thinkers and experts from the public and private sectors and a broad range of disciplines to connect, share, learn, and engage. The full-day event was dedicated to a number of sessions in a range of formats to build a multistakeholder community for trust and resilience in the digital space.
The Digital Trust Convention also included a session on the “Global Challenge to Build Trust in the Age of Generative AI,” which was initiated by VDE, OECD, IEEE, UNESCO, IDB, AI Commons, GPAI, and other partners in 2023.
The Digital Trust Convention was co-hosted by the Atlantic Council, the Bertelsmann Stiftung, KI Park, the Mila Quebec AI Institute, the OECD, the Partnership on AI (PAI), the Association of Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies (VDE), and the World Privacy Forum. These organisations have many years of experience in the field of digital trust.
Dr Sebastian Hallensleben serves as the Programme Chair of the Digital Trust Convention.
AGENDA
| Time | Topic / Format | Speakers |
| 10:00 | Opening and Welcome | Jerry Sheehan Director, OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation Sebastian Hallensleben Programme Chair, Digital Trust Convention; Head of AI & Digital Trust, VDE; Co-Chair AI Risk & Accountability, OECD ONE.AI |
| 10:15 | Series of keynotes: Setting the scene: The disruption of trust in the digital space from multiple perspectives | Henry Parker Vice-President Corporate Affairs, logically.ai Katharina Zügel Policy Manager, Forum on Information & Democracy Florian Merkel Principal Product Owner UGC, Holidaycheck Audrey Plonk Deputy Director, OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation |
| 11:25 | Keynote: Our task ahead: The three questions we need to answer | Sebastian Hallensleben Programme Chair, Digital Trust Convention; Head of AI & Digital Trust, VDE; Co-Chair AI Risk & Accountability, OECD ONE.AI |
| 11:40 | Understanding the type and scale of the problem Panel discussion with audience Q&A; Moderator: Melisa Basol (Founder of Pulse) | Mark-Boris Andrijanic Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council; Vice President, Kumo.AI Monica Brezzi Head, Governance Indicators and Performance Division, OECD Tim Clement-Jones Liberal Democrat House of Lords spokesperson for Science, Innovation and Technology – House of Lords, UK Pam Dixon Executive Director, World Privacy Forum Winston Ojenge Head of the digital economy program, African Center for Technology Studies (ACTS) |
| 12:30 | Lunch Break | |
| 13:30 | Foundations for a vision of digital trust Series of keynotes, followed by joint Q&A with all speakers | Andreas Kaminski Professor for Philosophy of Science and Technology, TU Darmstadt Peter Lewis Canada Research Chair in Trustworthy AI and Associate Professor, Ontario Tech University, Canada Amir Banifatemi Global Challenge to Build Trust; Co-Founder and Director, AI Commons; Founder and Content Curator, AI for Good Global Summit David Bray Principal/CEO & Distinguished Chair of the Accelerator, LDA Ventures & Stimson Center |
| 14:35 | What we can build on: Current initiatives Panel discussion with audience Q&A; Moderator: Benjamin Prud’homme (Mila) | Claire Leibowicz Head of AI and Media Integrity, Partnership on AI Mark-Boris Andrijanic Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council; Vice President, Kumo.AI Pavol Draxler Security Manager, Binary Confidence Shameek Kundu Executive Director, AI Verify Foundation – Singapore |
| 15:40 | Coffee Break | |
| 16:10 | Creating change: Actions, institutions, resources Panel discussion with audience Q&A; Moderator: Sebastian Hallensleben | Giuseppe Ugazio Associate Professor in Behavioral Philanthropy and Finance, Geneva Finance Research Institute, University of Geneva Jutta Juliane Meier Founder and CEO, Identity Valley Martin Hullin Director Digitalization and the Common Good, Bertelsmann Stiftung Milos Maricic Chair, Executive AI Francesca Bosco Chief Strategy and Partnerships Officer, CyberPeace Institute Rebecca Finlay CEO, Partnership on AI |
| 17:25 | The Global Challenge to Build Trust: Exploring the full technology & policy solution space | Karine Perset Head of AI and Emerging Digital Technologies, OECD – with Sarah Bérubé / Jamie Berryhill, OECD Amir Banifatemi Global Challenge to Build Trust; Co-Founder and Director, AI Commons; Founder and Content Curator, AI for Good Global Summit Arnaud David Director Public Policy EMEA, Amazon Web Services (AWS) |
| 17:45 | Summary and Closing: What happens next? | Benjamin Prud’homme Vice-President, Policy, Safety and Global Affairs, Mila Sebastian Hallensleben Programme Chair, Digital Trust Convention; Head of AI & Digital Trust, VDE; Co-Chair AI Risk & Accountability, OECD ONE.AI Martin Hullin Director Digitalization and the Common Good, Bertelsmann Stiftung |
| 18:00-19:30 | Reception |