Day 1: https://view.flodesk.com/emails/6a7d76896874b6b608be2fb2

Day 2: https://view.flodesk.com/emails/6a7e349774e77421d655d837

 

Three days are finished, and I’m leaving Geneva with a very full brain, a lot more questions, and absolutely no regrets about coming.

 

This wasn’t a traditional conference where we sat and listened to people talk about AI. It was a working summit. Over three days, we challenged ideas, debated them and worked on recommendations intended to move from concept into something practical.

 

The next stage is to test those recommendations properly. Some may prove to be great ideas in theory but difficult or unrealistic to implement. Others may hold up, evolve and move forward. The goal is to pressure-test them before they are brought to the UN in Nairobi in February 2027, with the hope that the strongest and most workable recommendations can eventually contribute to international AI governance policy.

 

Someone said earlier in the summit that we are making history.

 

Sitting here at the end of Day 3, that feels a little more real.

 

 

One of the reasons it was so important for me to attend was that I kept hearing conversations about small countries and thinking, this is exactly what small businesses are dealing with.

 

Access. Cost. Dependency. Sovereignty. Having infrastructure controlled by somebody much bigger than you. Having rules changed that you had no part in creating. Protecting your information and intellectual property. Making sure you can leave one provider and move somewhere else without losing everything.

Change “small country” to “small company” in many of these conversations and the issue barely changes. And it works the other way around too.

 

I came here as an advocate for small business, but I’m also Canadian. Sovereignty isn't an abstract conversation for Canada right now. That gave me another perspective when listening to smaller countries talk about becoming dependent on technology, infrastructure and intelligence controlled somewhere else.

 

That is exactly why different voices need to be in these rooms.

 

 

Day 3 spent considerable time looking at small versus large AI models, and one thing became very clear to me: we need to stop assuming bigger automatically means better.

 

A smaller, specialized model can sometimes do a specific job more efficiently, using fewer resources and potentially producing better results for that particular purpose. The discussion wasn't really about choosing small or large. It was about choosing what makes sense for the problem we're actually trying to solve.

 

That led directly into energy and infrastructure, where I contributed an idea I've been thinking about throughout the summit.

 

What if we took some of the principles already proven through crypto mining, where households can contribute standardized computing resources and receive an economic benefit, and combined them with concepts from torrent-style file sharing, where an individual participant doesn't have to hold the entire file?

 

Could households, small businesses, communities and countries of any size contribute computing resources to a larger distributed AI infrastructure?

Then I started thinking about what this could mean in remote communities, including parts of Africa and other regions where traditional infrastructure may be limited but solar energy is abundant.

 

Instead of waiting for power lines from major cities to reach remote communities, could we build locally powered, solar micro data centres that serve several villages at once? With appropriate solar generation, battery storage, connectivity and infrastructure, these facilities could operate locally rather than depending entirely on a distant centralized power grid.

 

The economic benefit from contributing computing resources to the larger network could potentially help offset operating costs and, over time, help the infrastructure pay for itself.

 

And why stop at a building full of computers?

 

That same facility could become a shared resource for several villages, bringing access to technology, AI, connectivity, education and training. It could create opportunities for entrepreneurs, young people and local businesses in communities that might otherwise wait years for traditional infrastructure to reach them.

 

 

I'm certainly not suggesting it's as easy as putting up solar panels, plugging in some computers and calling it a day. There are significant technical, connectivity, storage, maintenance, privacy, security and governance questions that need to be worked through.

 

But that's exactly what this process is for.

 

Why does the future of AI infrastructure automatically have to mean bigger data centres, more concentrated energy consumption and more economic benefit flowing to places that already have the infrastructure?

 

What if some of it could flow the other way?

 

 

Whether this particular vision proves technically and economically practical is exactly the kind of thing that now needs to be tested.

 

But apparently the question was worth asking.

 

And yeah... that's pretty damn cool.

 

 

I've thought about this a lot over these three days.

 

I'm excited about AI. I use it. I teach people about it. I believe it can create enormous opportunities. I'm also increasingly concerned about where we're going if we continue racing forward without stopping long enough to think about what we're giving up along the way.

 

I want to protect small businesses, independent thought and intellectual property. Most importantly, I want us to protect the humanity in all of this.

I don't believe we're simply going to stop AI development. My concern is that we may do damage before the larger players recognize where we need to pull back. There may be a correction. There may be a bubble that bursts. I don't know exactly what that will look like.

 

What I do know is that we should be thinking about it before it happens. How do we offset the damage where we can? How do we make sure smaller businesses and countries aren't crushed in the process? How do we build enough resilience that when things settle, we're ready to learn from what happened, pick things back up and move forward with a sustainable long-term plan?

 

For me, that's part of responsible AI.

 

 

I do have one disappointment leaving Geneva.

 

For all the important conversations happening here, there was no official representation from one of the major AI companies building the technology shaping so much of this conversation, and I didn't see official ministerial representation from the larger developed countries either.

 

I think that was a missed opportunity.

 

There was so much they could have learned from the people in these rooms, particularly smaller countries and organizations dealing with very different realities around infrastructure, access, language, energy and sovereignty. There was also a lot they could have contributed. Their presence would have demonstrated that these concerns are being taken seriously at the highest levels.

 

I genuinely hope they are in the room in Nairobi in February when this work reaches its next major stage.

 

But their absence reinforced something for me.

 

 

More than 90% of businesses worldwide are micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and ILO research has found that approximately 70% of global employment comes from self-employment, micro-enterprises and small enterprises.

 

The large may hold an incredible amount of concentrated power, capital and infrastructure, but the small have something too.

 

 

History is full of David-and-Goliath stories. Small doesn't mean powerless, especially when the small work together.

 

Whether we're talking about small countries, small businesses, entrepreneurs, independent professionals or the people employed by them, we need to stop behaving as though we're simply waiting for the largest players to decide what happens next.

 

If the superpowers, whether countries or companies, choose not to be in the room, the rest of us still need to be.

 

 

After these three days, I believe that more strongly than ever.

 

 

Coming to Geneva was a huge personal expense. This was volunteer work. There was no big cheque waiting at the end of it.

 

I came because I wanted small business represented in a conversation that will eventually affect every one of us.

 

My goal was pretty simple: make an impact.

 

I can leave Geneva knowing I did that.

 

An idea I brought into the room became part of the recommendations coming out of this summit. Whether that recommendation ultimately survives the testing process, changes considerably or evolves into something completely different remains to be seen. That's exactly why the next stage matters.

But I contributed.

 

Whatever happens from here, I got to add a small piece to a much bigger international conversation about how AI should develop.

 

That's something I can leave behind. A little piece of my legacy.

 

And yeah... that's pretty cool.

 

There is far too much from these three days to squeeze into three newsletters, so I'm not going to try. Over the coming weeks, I'll dig deeper into individual topics including sovereignty, small versus large AI models, energy and decentralized infrastructure, accountability, education, intellectual property, independent thought, and what all of this means for small businesses and accounting professionals.

 

For now, I'm leaving Geneva with one thought that probably sums up the entire experience for me:

 

 

Not small countries.

 

Not small businesses.

 

And definitely not the humans all this technology is supposed to serve.