Artificial intelligence has vaulted to the top of the technology policy agenda and rightly so. Questions about algorithmic accountability, intellectual property, online misinformation, and data security require immediate and thoughtful attention.  Yet we cannot lose sight of a threshold and fundamental challenge: millions of people in the United States, and billions of people around the world, still lack access to high-speed, reliable, and affordable internet service.

For those on the wrong side of the digital divide, debates about AI, online safety, or data security aren’t even on the table.  Without connectivity, people are excluded from education, healthcare, work, and civic life—let alone the chance to have a voice in how the next generation of technology should be governed.

Closing this gap is not a secondary issue to effective technology policy; it is a prerequisite.  Ensuring universal connectivity must be part of the same conversation as harnessing the benefits and containing the risks of AI and other emerging technologies.  Otherwise, we risk deepening inequality by crafting the legal frameworks of the future while leaving millions without the ability to participate in that future at all.

Having worked at the FCC, NTIA, and now at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy, I have seen how essential it is to hold both conversations at once.  Yes, we must create thoughtful legal and policy frameworks for AI and other emerging technologies, and we must train future lawyers and lawmakers to center social good in this work.  But those efforts must not eclipse the unfinished work of closing the connectivity gap–and teaching students about the importance of universal and sustainable internet access. 

Digital policy must integrate two core aspects:

1. Infrastructure and Access: Policies, funding, and legal frameworks that make affordable, high-speed, dependable online access available for everyone.
2. Governance and Oversight: Policies and legal frameworks for how new technologies are developed, deployed, and held accountable to promote innovation, investment, and growth, while bettering society.

This dual perspective is vital.  Without AI and online governance, access can bring harms as well as benefits; without access, online governance is hollow.  The policy community cannot afford to treat broadband access as yesterday’s problem while turning its full attention to AI and emerging tech.  Our national discussion must hold both in view. Online access and online governance are part of the same agenda.  Only by advancing both together can we ensure that the benefits of technological innovation extend to everyone.

In my work as a fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy, I remain committed to pushing for integrated policy work—with scholars, technologists, civil society, industry and government—to ensure that we do not skip over the critical step of connection.  Because until we get that right, the promise of emerging technology will remain out of reach for too many.

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Stephanie Weiner is a Senior Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and former Chief Counsel at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. In Spring 2026, she will convene a summit, Universal Broadband: Promise vs. Progress, bringing together policymakers, industry leaders, and advocates to take stock of where we are, confront the hard lessons of past broadband deployment and affordability programs, and chart a path forward to ensure universal, high-speed, sustainable internet access across America.