Navigating AI with a Human Development Compass – Shaping Tomorrow’s Capabilities

This Policy Forum examines the intersections of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Development (HD) through the lens of the capabilities approach. As AI technologies increasingly permeate all stages of life and sectors of society, they offer both unprecedented opportunities to expand human capabilities as well as serious risks to autonomy, wellbeing, agency, and equity. Drawing on the 2025 Human Development Report, the editorial includes a life course perspective, exploring how AI affects people differently from early childhood to old age, and how institutional settings shape interactions with AI systems. The six contributions to this issue explore policies that optimize AI use for democracy, education, mental wellbeing, climate resilience, rural women's access to technology, and international regulation. Across these diverse contexts, the papers argue for people-centred policies that emphasise key principles such as transparency, inclusive design, explicability, ethical oversight, affordability, and active participation. These principles are essential to shaping AI systems in a way that expands capabilities and agency, shaping the course of HD for decades to come. Taken together, the contributions call for a (re)orientation of AI policies toward expanding substantive freedoms and enhancing the conditions for human flourishing.