Why innovation needs smarter governance, not just faster tech

A brain implant translating thoughts directly into speech. Scammers reproducing your voice using AI. Companies attempting to bring back extinct species. These headlines sound like science fiction, but they are real and increasingly common in our news feeds. Emerging technologies -- from AI and quantum to autonomous systems -- are evolving faster than the policies designed to oversee them.

As emerging technologies blur the line between what is plausible and what is possible, the sheer speed of change challenges our capacity to steer their responsible development. And policymakers face a critical question: how can governance evolve alongside technology to enable innovation while managing risks to society?

The stakes are high. Inadequate governance can hamper innovation, undermine public trust and leave societies exposed to unintended consequences. To address this challenge, some governments are exploring the idea of agile governance, an approach that emphasises adaptability, collaboration and learning by doing. It aims to promote responsible innovation by reducing regulatory uncertainties, enabling experimentation, and fostering collaboration between policymakers and innovators.

Unlike traditional models of technology governance, agile governance integrates different governance designs such as experimentation (like regulatory sandboxes), foresight and outcome-based policies. The focus on anticipation and co-creation approaches allows it to support and steer innovation rather than just react to it. As such, it's more of an iterative and responsive process than a set of fixed approaches to laws and rules.

Agile governance functions when policymakers and innovators engage directly throughout the policy cycle and innovation process and well upstream of potential challenges or conflicts. A few examples are illustrative:

Testbeds for smart mobility solutions allowed public authorities in the Netherlands to partner with private companies and researchers to test connected and autonomous vehicles in real-world conditions, adjusting policy and technical standards based on insights gained from the trials. This helped design smarter policies based on real-world inputs. 

LEGO has integrated safety by design principles in their products, such as “LEGO Life" (2017), a moderated social media network for users under 13 years of age with built-in safety features. Safety by design allows technology developers and service providers to pre-emptively address online harms by anticipating, detecting, and eliminating risks for users throughout their lifecycle. Policymakers, such as Australia’s e-safety commissioner, support these efforts by producing practical recommendations assessments, and tools to help providers increase digital safety by design. 

To make agile governance work, policymakers must adopt a mindset more akin to technologists, proactive fast-moving, and open to iteration, while innovators take shared responsibility for public outcomes. The OECD has has identified six agile governance principles to enable responsible innovation:

1. Iterate governance approaches as technologies develop and mature. Trying to craft the perfect legislation from the start slows down both innovation and regulation.

2. Generate knowledge through strategic intelligence and experimentation for insights on future governance challenges.

3. Learn by generating feedback loops and knowledge transfer between policymakers, innovators and civil society.

4. Embed governance considerations throughout the innovation process, starting with more flexible approaches like by-design at early stages of innovation, and consider more formalised processes such as regulatory sandboxes at later stages.

5. Enable communities to create their own governance, such as developing industry codes-of-conduct or standards for technology and support the sharing of information and best practice design.

6. Co-create norms and governance with a broad range of stakeholders, ensuring various forms of stakeholder engagement form a crucial input into policy design.

By putting these principles into practice, policymakers and innovators can shape a more adaptive, inclusive, and future-ready governance landscape together, one that champions innovation while staying rooted in societal values and public trust.

OECD recommends slowly introducing such practices into governance considerations. First, by understanding the purpose, benefits, challenges and appropriate use of agile mechanisms to understand which approaches may be best suited to the technologies that are being considered. Second, by learning from others who have implemented such mechanisms successfully into their practices. And third, to understand and engage with the local ecosystem of innovators and policymakers to establish collaborative links and contextualise each agile mechanism’s application to its context. A new OECD report, Agile mechanisms for responsible technology development, offers additional insights.

While technological innovation has been a staple of human history, the global and interconnected nature of our societies and economies means that the diffusion and impact of change is increasingly amplified. In response, our ability to support and manage this innovation must also evolve. Agile governance can enable policymakers to shape the future of technology by keeping pace with rapid change, rather than just reacting to it.