Plenković speaks on AI during visit to India

On the second day of his official visit to India, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković took part in the AI Impact Summit, addressing the leaders’ panel on artificial intelligence and the responsibility that accompanies technological progress.

Plenković stressed that artificial intelligence must remain inclusive and serve as a constructive instrument of open and free societies. The decisive question, he said, is not whether we can move faster, but whether we can lead digital transformation wisely.

While describing AI as a breakthrough capable of transforming healthcare, education, public services and even leisure, he cautioned that it also poses serious risks in the wrong hands.

“From the dawn of civilization until the year 2000, humanity produced only a few hundred exabytes of recorded information. Today, every single day we produce almost twice the total of all previous human history. Yet the true disruption is not only the scale, but the shifting balance between verified knowledge and noise. With six billion smartphones worldwide, anyone can instantly broadcast to a global audience. The boundary between fact, opinion and manipulation is increasingly blurred. AI now produces content so convincing that truth and fabrication are harder to distinguish - a breakthrough with immense promise, but serious risks in the wrong hands.

“Democracy rests not on the rule of the most learned, but on the judgment of the majority. That majority remains free only if it is reasonably well informed; otherwise, freedom of choice risks becoming the freedom of delusion,” the prime minister said.

Turning to Croatia, Plenković highlighted digital transformation as one of the country’s key national priorities.

“Europe has chosen a distinctive path: human-centred AI grounded in fundamental rights, transparency and accountability. Croatia believes that in the 21st century, digital infrastructure and data governance are matters of sovereignty and resilience, not merely technology.

“Two weeks ago, I chaired our National Council for Digital Transformation, where we reaffirmed that digital transformation is our core national priority in the years ahead. Six years ago, fewer than three in twenty Croatian households had access to 5G; today, 19 out of 20 do. Fibre broadband reaches 75 percent of households, 5G coverage exceeds 94 percent, and nearly 83 percent of citizens use digital public services,” Plenković said.

During his visit, the prime minister also met with António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and delivered a lecture at the University of Delhi titled “Bridging Continents: Croatia and India in a Connected World.”