Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Diplomacy: A Systematic Review of Emerging Practices, Risks, and Governance Challenges
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53819/81018102t70110Abstract
Artificial intelligence is moving from a peripheral technological issue to a consequential element of diplomatic practice and international governance. This systematic review synthesises recent scholarship on how AI is being applied in diplomacy, the risks accompanying its adoption, and the governance challenges created by its growing role in foreign affairs. A PRISMA 2020-informed review was conducted across structured scholarly web searches, publisher and repository interfaces, and backward and forward reference chaining. English-language scholarly works published between 2020 and 5 September 2026 were screened for direct relevance to diplomatic practice, foreign-policy decision making, public diplomacy, negotiation, crisis management, consular work, or international AI governance. Twenty-eight focal studies met the eligibility and quality criteria. The thematic synthesis identified three dominant areas of transformation: AI-assisted diplomatic intelligence and decision support; AI-mediated public diplomacy and strategic communication; and regulatory diplomacy surrounding global AI governance. Additional applications were evident in crisis management, negotiation support, and consular administration. The principal risks involved epistemic bias and model unreliability, loss of human oversight, disinformation and synthetic influence, privacy and confidentiality threats, weakened interpersonal trust, and widening inequalities in AI capacity. Governance scholarship further showed that AI is becoming both an instrument and an object of geopolitical competition, especially through standards, regulation, computing infrastructure, and technology supply chains. The review concludes that the most defensible trajectory is augmented rather than autonomous diplomacy, in which AI expands analytical capacity while accountable human judgement remains authoritative. It proposes an integrated practice-risk-governance framework and a research agenda focused on empirical evaluation, the Global South, small-state diplomacy, institutional accountability, and crisis escalation.
Keywords: artificial intelligence; diplomacy; digital diplomacy; foreign policy; public diplomacy; global governance; systematic review
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