Last week, I left Portsmouth, New Hampshire (which is over an hour by road from Boston’s Logan International airport), energized after participating in the IAPP Navigate 2026 Digital Policy Leadership Summit, which is also a type of executive leadership retreat for data leaders impacting and impacted by the IAPP and the broader fields of digital governance and responsibility. It was a privilege to participate as a member of the IAPP Certification Advisory Board and contribute to conversations shaping some of the world’s most respected certification programs in privacy, AI governance and digital policy.
I was especially grateful to exchange ideas in a place so closely tied to the early intellectual foundations of today’s artificial intelligence. In many ways, Portsmouth carried the same energy, ambition, excitement and skepticism that have always defined the vast fields of AI, technology and data. The conversations in every room were dynamite, but also especially connecting with Julie Owono, ShanShan P., J. Trevor Hughes , Douglas Forman, Ph.D. , Gretchen Swanz Herault, CIPP, CIPM , David Hickey , Maitreya Shah , Barbara Cosgrove , Ashley Casovan , Greta Bujutė , Ursula McGlinn Kate Jones Nevfel Akkasoglu Darcey Carey, Mark Bunting, Melissa Robertson, CPA , James Dempsey , Camila Tobón, Richard Seither Jonathan Zittrain Christina Montgomery Bojana Bellamy Jules Polonetsky and so many other esteemed colleagues provoking and provoked by the similar discussions. Different sectors, countries, states and regions. Different regulatory environments. Different perspectives. Shared purpose.
I have since been carrying the glow of a truly remarkable week one that could only have unfolded in that particular place, at that particular time. It brought a rare feeling of quiet but persistent convergence: the sense that many of the ideas, questions, commitments, fields and responsibilities I have been leading and learning across the many years are beginning to meet in one place, with new urgency and purpose. Perhaps that is age, perspective or experience speaking. But it felt like more than serendipity, like a strategic gathering of minds at a moment when trust, data, AI and human judgment are all asking to be understood together.
Spending time with leaders from around the world reinforced the importance of building sound governance into the systems, standards and skills that will define the next era of trust. It also gave me space to reflect on how closely these conversations connect to the future of data, insights and evidence-based decision-making, including my work across industry associations such as the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) (that I’m also so proud to be on the Executive Council for, leading an especially strong inclusion and equity agenda alongside terrific colleagues) and the many ways this work and my professional work intersects across the worlds of WAPOR, Esomar, Canadian Marketing Association, Insights Association , QRCA and my broader life across data, marketing, research and insights enabling all the immigrant integration supports, workforce mobility and programming at Generation1.ca powered in good data and cultural empathy all year every year!
One thought kept coming back to me. The greatest barrier to progress in data, analytics and AI isn’t technology related. It’s our age-old tendency to work in silos! Optimizing pieces instead of understanding the human systems, talent and collaboration that create lasting business and social value.
Portsmouth itself was a reminder of the importance of presence. A stunning historic coastal town where Maine is just across the bridge, conversations flowed as easily as the Atlantic breeze. Fresh lobster, Maine blueberries, outdoor concerts and walks along the Atlantic created the perfect backdrop for discussions that will influence tomorrow.
Several timely topics surfaced throughout the summit, and a few continued to linger long after the sessions ended: competitive model performance, youth privacy and civil rights in the age of AI, and the implications for parenting, education and especially higher education.
We also examined governance for agentic AI across sectors, the history and future of the internet, digital regulation, and the oversight needed to build technologies and governance systems worthy of public trust. A phrase that stayed with me was human attention fracking, a term by D. Graham Burnett to describe the battle for, and extraction of, human attention in today’s highly commoditized digital environment.
For me, these questions and many others also connect directly to immigration, mobility and belonging. Technologies and policies are never neutral in their impact. They shape who is seen, who is protected, who is excluded and who gets to fully participate in society.
That is why the conversations mattered so much. Across privacy, AI governance, humanitarian work, platform accountability, financial services, startups, healthcare, oncology, higher education and digital regulation, the same truth kept surfacing: technology is never just technical. It is social, political, economic and deeply human.
I was especially grateful for the long, generous conversations with Julie Owono, David Hickey, CAB Chair Gretchen, Greta and Darcey among others, all leaders moving across platform accountability, humanitarian work, financial services, recruitment and staffing, social media, tech startups and life-saving healthcare research innovation to recall just a few examples of the diversity of our work and interests. From Paris to Dublin to Boston and well beyond, so many of these and other exchanges made one thing clear: the future of trust will be built by people who understand both complex systems and human stakes. (Ps- Thanks to Julie for sharing the bagpipers’ video to mark the arrival of lobsters and World Cup formalities.)
There were disagreements, healthy skepticism and rigorous debate, exactly what responsible leadership demands. These are not technical subjects for technicians alone. When human rights sit at the centre, we need cross-functional leadership capable of building fairer systems for the communities most affected by them.
The discussions followed the Chatham House Rule, creating space for candid thinking rather than performative speaking between networking breaks, desserts and lunch.
There were many memorable insights, including the idea that privacy, and perhaps AI, can operate as “secular languages”: connective tissues for trust, character and identity-building, themes we discuss often at Generation1.ca.
But the value lay not in who said what or even when. It lay in the quality of the ideas themselves, and in how people chose to engage with them through their own contexts.
It was fascinating (sometimes amusing, sometimes frustrating) to watch the AI agent Berkie? powered by NextSpace become a participant / pseudo clone in conversations on the big screen, navigating human peer pressure. Being critiqued, challenged or even joked with by non-sentient systems is rapidly becoming part of professional life. That, too, says something about the era we are entering.
I left with one clear takeaway: whether we are building or deploying AI, conducting research or shaping public policy, trust is not a by-product of innovation. It is the infrastructure that makes innovation possible, and very often, we as people are that infrastructure.
That is why we need more people who can bridge disciplines, sectors and borders with evidence, integrity and sound judgment. And yes, the civic habit of public consultation needs to be embedded far more deeply into our democratic processes if we truly value critical thinking, scientific inquiry, future-ready institutions and better governance.
