The notion of "community" is undergoing a silent but profound metamorphosis. By 2026, over 340 cities worldwide have adopted participatory governance platforms integrating artificial intelligence, according to a census published in March by the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights network. These tools—Decidim in Barcelona, Consul in Madrid, DemocracyOS in Buenos Aires—allow citizens to propose, debate, and vote on local projects in real-time, with algorithms that synthesize contributions, identify consensus, and flag blind spots.
The most advanced model is being deployed in Seoul, where the "mVoting" platform surpassed 12 million participations in February 2026. Each citizen has a wallet of digital "civic tokens" that they allocate to projects of their choice—renovating a park, extending a bus line, installing charging stations. AI analyzes voting patterns to detect emerging needs before they become demands: in 2025, the system anticipated the saturation of the daycare network in three districts six months in advance, allowing the city hall to act preventively.
In Europe, the European Commission's "Digital Citizens" program, with a budget of €2.8 billion for 2025-2030, is funding the deployment of these tools in cities with over 50,000 inhabitants. France launched the "Cités solidaires" program in January 2026, connecting 42 pilot municipalities via a single platform for resource pooling: a resident of Roubaix can borrow a tool from a neighbor in Tourcoing, report a need for food assistance, or offer carpooling for solidarity, all orchestrated by a multilingual AI assistant. Initial results show a 28% increase in neighborhood interactions in three months.
Digital solidarity is not limited to developed countries. In Kenya, the Ushahidi platform—created in 2008 to map post-election violence—has evolved into a community management tool used by over 400 villages. Farmers share hyper-local weather data, health clinics report drug stockouts, schools coordinate school transport. The model has been replicated in Bangladesh, Senegal, and Colombia. The UN estimates that these platforms have reduced response times to local crises in deployed rural areas by 34%.
Criticisms are not lacking. Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute warn of the risk of a "participation gap": the most connected and educated citizens dominate the platforms, replicating the inequalities of representative democracy online. In Paris, a study by the CNRS showed that 72% of proposals submitted on the participatory budgeting platform came from residents of the most affluent districts. The solution lies in inclusive design—simplified interfaces, human mediation, public terminals—but also in recognizing that technology does not replace the social fabric: it amplifies it, for better or for worse.
