Building Our Digital Future in 2025 and Beyond

As we navigate a new era and an administration advancing Project 2025, we find ourselves at a crossroads of unprecedented technological dominance and profound societal challenges. There is a heightened urgency to steer innovation toward the public good while advocating for better safeguards. At New America, our Technology and Democracy programs are committed to shaping a digital ecosystem that is safer, open, and inclusive.

Together, we are delivering on an ambitious research and impact agenda for 2025. We also often collaborate with other New America programs, including Future Tense; New Practice Lab; #ShareTheMicInCyber Fellowship; and Teaching, Learning, and Tech. Fostering a sustainable digital future that advances economic opportunity, innovation, fundamental rights, and participatory governance is a collective effort. We will continue to prioritize ethics, trust, and accessibility in our work and impact, and we believe informed users can hold leaders accountable. Our research, advocacy, and field-building strategy focuses on three core objectives:

1. Leverage technology to serve the common good
2. Strengthen affordable and universal access to information
3. Reenvision tech policy to protect fundamental rights and strengthen security

Innovation must prioritize people and communities. In 2024, we celebrated the recognition and evolution of our Public Interest Technology - University Network as it grew into an independent entity; introduced RethinkAI—a cross-sector initiative to support safe, effective, and equitable applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in cities; and—after two years of collaborative research convened by our Digital Impact and Governance Initiative (DIGI) and partners like the Ford Foundation and Microsoft—we published recommendations focused on identifying the conditions for healthier, more secure digital ecosystems to guide the next generation of open protocols and platforms.

We are scaling these efforts in 2025:

• RethinkAI is launching pilots in three U.S. cities to explore the governance of data and AI applications while prioritizing trust and transparency.
• DIGI is publishing learnings and code from the My File project, a collaborative open-source digital solution that strengthens access and management of public services and programs. The system is live in New York City.
• We will continue to strengthen and lead public interest technology and digital public infrastructure (DPI) efforts while we chart our next phase of ensuring that U.S. innovation and digital infrastructure safely support economic opportunity for all.

Incremental approaches—inclusive of open, accessible, and adaptable solutions—can prioritize the public interest while addressing structural and operational constraints.

Digital technology can only empower individuals if everyone can access affordable, reliable broadband internet service. In 2024, we celebrated a victory—the debut of Broadband Nutrition Labels—which our Open Technology Institute (OTI) has championed for the past 15 years. These labels, which the Federal Communications Commission made mandatory, solidify opportunities for consumers to make informed choices about their internet service. OTI also set the stage for upcoming debates around the scope and funding of the Universal Service Fund (USF). OTI explained the USF’s crucial role in helping all Americans get connected and published a brief on lessons learned from recent broadband affordability programs to educate and engage policymakers who will decide the USF’s fate in 2025.

Wireless Future (WiFu) at OTI helped push through further improvements in connectivity policy this year. In addition to shaping the National Spectrum Strategy (NSS), WiFu proposed expanding indoor-only use of military and other federal spectrum to expand the benefits of intensive spectrum sharing/connectivity. The Departments of Commerce and Defense are testing this use as part of the NSS.

As we prepare for critical policy debates in 2025, we are doubling down on our commitment to universal connectivity:

• OTI will advocate reforming the Universal Service Fund (USF) to ensure it keeps supporting affordable internet access and adoption for all Americans.
• WiFu will explore, through a new expert working group, the role of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks in promoting competition, connectivity, and inclusion.
• OTI will also continue to champion a national digital skills framework so that Americans are equipped with the necessary tools to thrive safely in an increasingly digital world.

Whether through wireless spectrum, broadband, or satellites, we aim to close the digital divide once and for all. No one should be left behind in the digital age.

As technology evolves, so too must the policies around the world that govern it. In 2024, our Technology and Democracy Fellows, supported by the MacArthur Foundation, emphasized the critical role that competition in emerging technologies continues to play in foreign policy. They propose a new doctrine to lead the U.S. foreign policy's approach to technology—one that could prioritize values over geopolitical rivalry and seeks collaboration.

Additionally, insights from Planetary Politics’ Global Task Force on Predictive Analytics for Security and Development convening in partnership with the Igarape Institute in Brazil informed a brief on bridging the AI governance divide between the Global North and the Global South. The program also hosted the second annual Digital Futures Symposium, which drove a global group of technologists, policymakers, scholars, and ethicists to carry out scenario-based policy research into the global impacts of AI and the various legislative and policy efforts to strengthen digital sovereignty. Showcasing that tech can be a tool for resilience, DIGI and New America’s Future of Land and Housing explored Ukraine’s Diia platform and eRecovery program as a model for transforming post-crisis property compensation and reconstruction.

We also broke new ground in shaping U.S. data and privacy policies. Based on our extensive privacy research, OTI proposed a cost-benefit framework for valuing data use and protecting individuals’ information. To improve youth safety online, we comprehensively analyzed age verification challenges and broader online safety policies. Our impact has been evident in the recommendations of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), congressional testimony, and our media presence. Additionally, OTI’s recommendations on openness in AI continue to influence national conversations about balancing innovation, accountability, and safety.

In 2025, we will continue to lead efforts to shape inclusive and ethical tech governance measures:

• Planetary Politics will monitor nations’ progress toward AI sovereignty and host its third annual Digital Futures Symposium, fostering global collaboration on AI governance.
• OTI will keep championing the need for national privacy standards, improved federal data practices, and responsible AI development that prioritizes the public interest.

Through these initiatives, we will bolster tech policy at home and abroad that upholds equity and human rights and defends democracy.

It is easy to get bogged down by the heavy stream of dire headlines and executive orders, but this year is critical to building a future in which technology serves everyone. Together, we can ensure that the digital revolution uplifts all communities, protects our democracy, and leaves no one behind.

The mission is vast, and we need to approach it with determination and strength. We must expand our audiences and collaborators. Last year, we had over 120,000 active web users across our programs, 300 media mentions, over 80 authored pieces of thought leadership, dozens of events and roundtables, responses for formal requests for comment, and opportunities to testify before Congress.

Some of the work that has reached the widest audiences in 2024 include informing an episode of Last Week Tonight about the TikTok ban, exploring what we can learn from Taylor Swift’s fan base to combat AI deepfakes, and the environmental toll of using ChatGPT. Our staff and fellows know that directly engaging people who use and are impacted by tech leads to real change. At the end of the day, we are fighting for the users.

We will build on this record in 2025. That means elevating actionable ideas and accessible solutions in all venues—even those where tech policy may still feel elusive. We know that challenges in the tech space persist around inadequate regulatory and legal environments, limited capacity, and stagnant efforts toward a comprehensive approach to privacy and human rights. But alongside these challenges, rapid change can also create transformative moments.

New America’s Technology and Democracy programs are ready to seize all opportunities to strengthen public services, bolster democratic institutions, drive innovative solutions to complex global issues, create shared prosperity and economic opportunity, and foster connections among individuals and communities worldwide.