UN delegates call for human oversight of AI in conference services

Delegates at the UN General Assembly’s Fifth Committee called for human oversight of artificial intelligence in conference services on 12 October, as the department responsible expands AI-assisted transcription and document work under budget pressure, according to United Nations Press. [1]

Uruguay’s representative, speaking for the Group of 77 and China, said AI tools needed rigorous quality controls and must respect all the UN’s official languages equally. Productivity gains should not come at the expense of accuracy or the expertise of language professionals, he said. Qatar’s delegate welcomed plans to develop AI policies and technical solutions for language services under the UN80 Initiative, while urging sufficient human oversight to protect quality.

Cherith Norman Chalet, the assistant secretary-general responsible for General Assembly and conference management, said the department had expanded its use of speech-to-text tools, automated transcription and AI-assisted document workflows. Experts were leading their integration, with human oversight of multilingual services, she said. [1]

The United Nations Press account put the backlog of verbatim meeting records at 225 at the end of 2025, up from 162 a year earlier, and said staff retraining and work-sharing had prevented a larger increase. It also reported a fall in translation volume from 222 million words in 2024 to 205 million in 2025, attributing the decline to shorter Secretariat reports under a liquidity measure. [1]