As the rivalry between Washington and Beijing freezes global consensus on artificial intelligence, smaller coalitions of nations are discovering that shared geography and shared stakes can accomplish what universal agreement cannot. Regional bodies like ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum are converting local urgencies — deepfakes distorting elections, data flows crossing borders without rules — into binding treaty-level commitments, moving at the speed the technology demands. This is not a failure of global ambition so much as a recognition of an older truth: governance, like trust, tends to
Regional AI blocs emerge as faster path than global consensus
Southeast Asian countries face electoral integrity crises from AI-driven deepfakes influencing elections.