View From the West Balkans: North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Tirana
An on-the-ground look at parliamentary modernization in North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania, highlighting how legislatures in Skopje, Pristina, and Tirana are approaching AI adoption with urgency and care. Conversations with MPs, parliamentary leaders, and the National Democratic Institute underscore a regional focus on legislative technology, institutional capacity, and cross-border collaboration to strengthen oversight and governance in the digital age.
Reimagining Parliament Through Foresight
How can parliaments think beyond short electoral cycles? This post examines policy foresight efforts such as the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System, Finland’s Committee for the Future, and Estonia’s Foresight Centre, showing how scenario planning and AI-supported analysis help legislatures prepare for long-term change.
From Citizen Ideas to Bills
Brazil’s Senate is advancing digital democracy with a new AI tool that links citizen ideas directly to bill drafting. Public suggestions can now inform legislation even without meeting endorsement thresholds, and the system has already contributed to a bill on protections for children of domestic violence victims.
AI Resources for MPs and Parliament Staff
AI is already changing how parliaments operate, and MPs and staff need practical, responsible guidance. Drawing on global legislative use cases, this post introduces AI resources designed for parliamentary offices, including policy templates, research workflows, and custom AI tools. Built for busy legislatures, these guides help boost capacity, support smart adoption, and keep human accountability at the center of parliamentary work.
When Law Becomes Data: What Brazil’s LexML Reveals About Akoma Ntoso
What Brazil’s LexML reveals about the future of structured law—and what Akoma Ntoso makes possible when legislation becomes interoperable data. A conversation with Monica Palmirani on digital standards, institutional silos, and why legal infrastructure matters in the age of AI.
Year One of the Digital Parliaments Project: What We Accomplished in 2025 and What's Ahead for 2026
One year after Caribbean parliamentarians identified a shared need to modernize legislative operations, the Digital Parliaments Project marks a key milestone. The first year saw the launch of ParlLink, an open-source, AI-enabled platform supporting legislative digitization and data standardization across partner parliaments. In 2026, the project will expand to new countries, introduce additional AI-powered tools, and strengthen a global community focused on practical parliamentary modernization.
From Slip-Up to Solution: How AI Can Help Fix Lawmaking in Estonia
A single missing word in Estonia’s gambling tax law nearly made online casinos tax-free, exposing how fragile legislative drafting can be. The error also sparked fast civic innovation: a former government CIO built an AI tool in a day to scan draft bills for mistakes, showing how artificial intelligence can strengthen lawmaking, improve oversight, and help catch costly errors before they become policy.
Why Legislative Modernizers Need to Pay Attention to this New Wave of AI
Claude Opus 4.5, Claude Code, Gemini 3 Pro, and agentic AI introduce stronger reasoning, automation, and multimodal capabilities with direct relevance to legislative research, drafting, analytics, and internal systems. For legislative modernizers, the shift signals a move from experimentation to real operational use inside parliaments.
Seasonal Greetings and a 2025 Recap
ModParl closes out 2025 with a practical example of AI in action, spotlighting Anguilla’s House of Assembly and its new AI-powered Hansard and legislative website. We also look back on a year of legislative modernization — from Europe to Africa and Asia.
AI in Parliaments is a Journey, Not a Switch
A conversation with Andy Williamson of the Inter-Parliamentary Union examines why adopting AI in parliaments is a gradual institutional journey. Centered on the new Maturity Framework for AI in Parliaments, the conversation explores how legislatures can assess readiness, build governance and capacity, and focus on democratic impact while learning from peer institutions.
Parliaments as Living Information Systems
A global shift is underway as AI pushes parliaments to evolve from paper-bound institutions into fully digital, adaptive information systems. This post explores why past tech waves fell short, what today’s “pacing problem” means for democracy, and how coordinated international action can drive genuine digital transformation.
The Pebble and the Boulder: Five Futures for Legislatures in the Age of AI
A look at five plausible futures for legislatures in the age of AI — and why global parliamentary leaders are acting now to address the “pacing problem,” strengthen oversight, and ensure democratic institutions shape, rather than get shaped by, accelerating technology.
On Day Three: The Final Recommendations Shaping the Future of AI in Parliaments
On the final day of the Artificial Intelligence Conference in Kuala Lumpur, delegates adopted twelve early recommendations to guide responsible AI adoption in legislatures — from readiness assessments and governance frameworks to capacity-building, oversight, and shared learning across parliaments.
On Day Two: Parliaments Take Stock and Plan Next Steps on AI
The second day of the Artificial Intelligence Conference in Kuala Lumpur spotlighted early-stage experimentation, widening capacity gaps, and new tools like the IPU’s AI Maturity Framework as parliaments assess their progress and chart next steps for trustworthy AI adoption.
On Day One: Are Parliaments Preparing for AI — or Being Pulled by It?
A firsthand look from Kuala Lumpur at how parliaments worldwide are grappling with the rise of AI — and whether they’re steering the technology or being swept along by it. Day one of the Artificial Intelligence Conference included global lawmakers debating future scenarios developed by the IPU and POPVOX Foundation, the urgent need to keep humans in the loop, and the promise of AI to free legislators for deeper public engagement.
The Academic Edition
From the UK and Japan to Italy and beyond, a new wave of academic research is revealing how artificial intelligence is reshaping parliaments worldwide. The latest ModParl explores what AI means for trust, representation, and the human side of lawmaking.
When Legislators Meet AI
Inside the Athens Democracy Forum’s two-day Parliamentary Caucus on technology, trust, and the future of representation
POPVOX Foundation Presents Inaugural Digital Parliaments Project Innovator Award to Caribbean Parliamentary Leaders
POPVOX Foundation presented the inaugural Digital Parliaments Project Innovator Award to Caribbean parliamentary leaders at the 68th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, honoring those driving digital transformation and collaboration across regional legislatures.
On Missing Imagination
Reflections from the Athens Democracy Forum on AI, democracy, and the courage to rethink political institutions
Seeing Parliaments as Spaces and Places
This month’s Modern Parliament highlights global innovations in citizen engagement—from AI ministers and virtual parliaments to the new "Parliament as a Space and Place" guide, cookbooks, and more.