AI can make networks easier to plan and operate, and it can expand the usefulness of online services. But it does not connect people by itself. Whether AI narrows the digital divide depends on access to reliable networks, affordable service and devices, digital skills, and security—not simply on whether a mobile signal reaches an area.
What AI is changing about connectivity
AI and connectivity affect each other in two directions. Networks carry the data and computing that AI services need; AI can, in turn, help operators manage networks and support services delivered over them. The practical opportunity is to make connectivity more useful and easier to extend. The risk is that people without adequate access, devices, or skills are left further behind as more services rely on digital systems.
The Broadband Commission’s State of Broadband 2024: Leveraging AI for Universal Connectivity considers AI in e-government, education, digital health, digital finance, and environmental applications. These uses can give people a reason to get online, but their benefits depend on dependable connections, accessible interfaces and languages, privacy, and affordability. An AI-powered service is not meaningfully available to someone who cannot reliably reach it or use it.
Can AI help networks reach more people?
Making existing networks easier to manage
AI offers network operators ways to forecast demand, detect faults, and help optimize routing, spectrum use, and network operations. These are potential operational benefits: the cited policy reports describe the opportunity and the conditions for universal connectivity, rather than documenting a single operator trial or proving a particular improvement in service.
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Better planning and fault management could help providers use infrastructure more effectively, including where networks are difficult to build or maintain. That possibility is not the same as a guarantee of new coverage. Building and operating a network still requires infrastructure, investment, power, and a service that people can afford.
Planning for rural and remote areas
AI may help planners assess demand and coordinate terrestrial, wireless, and satellite systems. Satellite broadband can potentially serve places that are hard to reach with ground-based networks, but the ITU’s Global Connectivity Report 2025 says adoption remains extremely limited. Satellite is therefore best understood as a possible complement to terrestrial networks, not a universal replacement for them.
Coverage alone also does not establish that a connection will be fast, reliable, or affordable enough for AI services. The relevant comparison includes availability, service quality, price, device access, skills, security, and the needs of the communities being served.
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More people are online, but access remains unequal
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates that about 6 billion people—74% of the world’s population—were using the Internet in 2025, while 2.2 billion remained offline. These are global estimates; they do not mean that everyone counted as online has a reliable or capable connection.
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The same distinction appears in 5G coverage. ITU’s 2025 estimates put coverage at 55% of the world’s population, but the figure was 84% in high-income countries and 4% in low-income countries. These are population-coverage estimates, not measures of adoption, affordability, connection quality, or whether each person can access 5G service.
ITU’s meaningful-connectivity framework treats six dimensions as linked:
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- Availability: whether service reaches a person’s location.
- Quality: whether the connection is capable and reliable enough for the task.
- Affordability: whether people can pay for service and the equipment it requires.
- Devices: whether they have a suitable phone, computer, or other way to get online.
- Skills: whether they can use digital services effectively.
- Security: whether they can use those services with appropriate protection.
AI’s connectivity impact should be judged against all six. Expanding coverage while leaving people unable to afford data or a capable device does not close the divide. Nor does access alone resolve barriers faced by rural and low-income communities, women, older people, or people with disabilities.
Will AI make Internet access more affordable?
AI may help operators use network resources more efficiently, but the cited reports do not establish that those efficiencies will translate into lower prices for customers. AI services can also depend on data-intensive connections and capable devices, adding to the cost of participation. Affordability therefore remains a separate question from network efficiency or coverage.
Digital skills matter for the same reason. A person needs more than a signal to benefit from online services: they need to be able to find, understand, and use them. As governments, schools, health services, and financial providers adopt AI applications, accessible design and support become part of what makes connectivity useful.
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What risks and costs come with AI-enabled connectivity?
A wider gap between basic and useful access
If valuable services work best on fast, reliable connections and recent devices, people with slower networks or fewer resources may have less access to their benefits. In that case, AI can increase the value of being well connected without making meaningful connectivity universal.
Privacy, security, and online harms
More AI-enabled services make privacy and security important parts of the connectivity equation. Misinformation and other online harms can also undermine the benefits of access. The Broadband Commission’s report treats risks and digital-divide effects alongside potential applications; access should not be counted as a complete success if people cannot use services safely.
Energy and infrastructure demands
Digital infrastructure has an environmental cost. ITU reports that data centres consumed about 1.5% of global electricity in 2025. This figure concerns data centres, not the full electricity use of all networks and devices. The growth of AI makes efficient infrastructure an important consideration alongside expanding access.
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What would it take for AI to help close the digital divide?
AI can support connectivity, but it is not a substitute for the conditions that make access meaningful. A credible effort to extend its benefits needs to address the full chain:
- Build and maintain networks where people lack reliable service, choosing terrestrial, wireless, or satellite options that fit local conditions.
- Make service and suitable devices affordable, rather than treating coverage as the only measure of success.
- Improve connection quality and reliability so that useful digital services can actually be reached.
- Provide accessible services and digital-skills support for people with different languages, abilities, and levels of experience.
- Protect users through sound security and privacy practices, while considering online harms.
- Account for the energy demands of the infrastructure needed to deliver digital and AI services.
ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin put the goal plainly: “In a world where digital technologies are essential to so much of daily life, everyone should have the opportunity to benefit from being online.” AI may help make that goal more attainable, but the measure of progress is whether more people gain safe, affordable, useful connectivity—not simply whether AI systems or network coverage expand.
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