Almost every week, I hear one of two things about artificial intelligence. The first is someone saying, “I’m not an expert on AI, but…” Everyone has an opinion. There are those that have been studying and working on this area for years, but for the vast majority of us, it is a completely new territory and we are to some extent making this up as we go along. 

The second is the sheer speed of the conversation itself: the fears, the hopes, the challenges, all moving at lightning speed, making it hard to know where to situate ourselves. 

Amid all of this, I want to offer two guideposts. First, AI reflects back to us the very realities of our world today, both the harms and inequities already present and our aspirations and creativity. We want to treat it as a force separate from ourselves, separate from humanity. But maybe the deeper question is: What does it reveal about us? And what do we need to learn and do with that?

What strikes me is that families are largely absent from most of the debate. That absence matters. We already know how social policy, economics, and culture so often fail to center family and child wellbeing. This roundtable is an opportunity to bring those dimensions of AI and technology to the surface and wrestle with them directly. One of the things it reflects is just how marginal families have become in how we design systems, policies, and technologies.

Secondly, many say AI is a key dimension of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. If that’s true, then history tells us something important. Every prior industrial revolution has reshaped the family—where people lived, how they worked, how children were raised and cared for, what local community life looked like. Industrial transformation and the evolution of the family have always gone hand in hand. 

But historically, these revolutions outpaced society’s ability to govern them. It often took decades for institutions to catch up, leaving families and their communities to absorb destabilizing effects before guardrails were put in place. And those effects weren’t always the ones imagined. They were often subtle shifts in culture, learning, and daily life that slowly but deeply reshaped societies.

Which means the question before us is not if family life will change, but how. And whether governance and policy can help ensure those changes strengthen, rather than destabilize, families and the communities that surround them.

At Capita, we see the flourishing of families as a litmus test for wider societal health. Families are society’s early warning system. When pressures mount, whether from economic shocks, climate disruption, or technological upheaval, it shows up first in family life: in caregiving, in child wellbeing, in the strength of relationships. If we fail to pay attention, we miss the indicators of deeper change. And, in this case, whether AI is supporting the common good, the equity and the dignity of citizens, families and their communities.

To phrase it in concise, ChatGPT style: AI is more than a technical challenge; it is a governance test—and a profound one. As the “AI power paradox” reminds us, the very systems that promise extraordinary benefits can also deepen inequality and disempower. And yet, families and children, the very foundation of our societies, remain on the sidelines of this debate. 

We may not have the answers, but by bringing diverse voices and expertise together, we can begin to surface how these tensions play out in real lives and at what cost. More than that, we can begin to claim agency over the changes already underway, rather than letting them simply overtake us.

If we begin here, if we put families at the heart as we think about governance, power, responsibility, household stability and the social bonds that sustain well-being, then there is hope for what comes next.

Caroline Cassidy is Capita’s Chief Strategy Officer.