Main Insight
At the Seventh Edition of The Athens Roundtable, experts explored how governments, industry, and civil society can prevent, monitor, report, prepare for and respond to AI incidents. With 2025 seeing record incidents, participants emphasized standardized reporting, secure data sharing, robust monitoring, and proactive governance to prevent crises and strengthen global AI safety.
Serious AI Incident Prevention and Preparedness
February 12, 2026
As part of the Seventh Edition of the Athens Roundtable on AI and the Rule of Law, a closed-door dialogue convened 36 experts from government, industry, civil society, and academia across 12 countries, including representatives from OECD, UNESCO, national AI safety institutes, and frontier AI companies. Building on insights from the GPAI OECD.AI Expert Workshop on AI Incidents in Paris (November 2025), the session addressed a pressing question:
What infrastructure do governments, industry, and civil society need to monitor, report, and respond to serious AI incidents before they escalate into crises?
The urgency of this question is clear. 2025 saw the highest number of documented AI incidents to date, ranging from malicious cyberattacks to autonomous systems providing unsafe guidance. However, current reporting is inadequate, often relying on media coverage or whistleblowers rather than systematic detection.
Participants highlighted the need for common reporting frameworks, secure information sharing mechanisms, robust monitoring systems, major accident prevention policies, early warning protocols, and feedback loops that connect incident data to regulators and relevant authorities.
By institutionalizing incident preparedness, the global community can shift from reactive and fragmented responses to AI harms that manifest in society, to proactive and coordinated governance, reducing risk and building trust in powerful AI systems.
Read a summary of the Athens Roundtable session on Serious AI Incident Prevention and Preparedness:
The session on incident monitoring & prevention was part of The Athens Roundtable 2025, aimed at moving from shared concerns to joint action.
- Read the 2025 Athens Roundtable Report for a summary and takeaways from the full event.
- Read the Defining and Governing Unacceptable AI Risk Report for insights from the closed-door dialogue session on AI red lines.
