The AI-enabled Citiverse is no longer a vision — it is a civic reality. Cities are already deploying AI-enabled digital twins, spatial intelligence tools, and immersive environments to govern, plan, and serve citizens better. The question is not whether this transition will happen. It is whether it will be interoperable, trusted, inclusive and shaped in the public interest.

Why Cities Must Act Now
AI, spatial computing, and digital twins are converging fast. Cities that engage now define their own frameworks for data sovereignty, governance, and services. Cities that wait will inherit systems built by others, shaped by values not their own.

Delay means: technological lock-in, duplicated investment, widening digital divides, and loss of civic competitiveness.

What the Citiverse Delivers
For mayors and city leaders, the AI-enabled Citiverse is the operating platform for the next era of urban governance: predictive infrastructure, personalized services, participatory planning, and real-time policy simulation, all grounded in the city’s own data and values. It is also a strategic asset for economic development and investment attraction: cities that deploy interoperable AI-enabled environments become more competitive destinations for innovation ecosystems, talent, and productive capital.

Our Call to All Stakeholders
We invite national, regional, and local governments, standards bodies, industry, and academia to join a voluntary, open, and inclusive global agenda across five priorities:

• Advance open standards together. Standards bodies, cities, and industry are encouraged to align voluntarily around interoperable AI-enabled Citiverse frameworks grounded in real deployments, not imposed top-down. No city should need to reinvent what others have already built.
• Make the AI-enabled Citiverse work for all. Solutions must be locally adaptable and globally portable serving rural communities, rapidly urbanizing cities and established metropolises alike, and reflecting the diversity of realities — from North to South and leaving no community behind.
• Scale proven use cases. Priority areas include digital twins for urban planning, AI-powered service delivery, climate resilience, and participatory governance. Real-world evidence drives better standards.
• Embed trust and human oversight. Data sovereignty, transparency, and meaningful citizen participation are not add-ons, they are the foundation of legitimate AI-enabled urban governance.
• Build the Global AI-enabled Citiverse Landscape. A living, shared map of standards, projects, and initiatives contributed to by all, available to all, to improve coordination and support evidence-based policy and decision making.

Global Citiverse Landscape Document
The Assembly called upon ITU, the European Commission, and OASC to develop a Global Citiverse Standardization Landscape — a comprehensive, living map of standards, initiatives, and deployments shaping the Citiverse worldwide. It will be submitted as a formal input to the EU Rolling Plan for ICT Standardization and to the Global Initiative on AI and Virtual Worlds – Discovering the Citiverse. National, regional, and local governments, standards bodies, and partners are invited to contribute, its value grows with every input.

This document complements the UN Virtual Worlds Day 2026 Call to Action, which provides a strategic framework for mayors, ministers, industry, academia and the UN System to translate these technologies into concrete public service delivery and digital inclusion.

The 2nd Citiverse Assembly, co-organized by ITU, the European Commission, OASC and UNICC, and supported by the European Commission funded project StandICT.eu 2029, took place on 12 May 2026 at ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Global Initiative on AI and Virtual Worlds – Discovering the Citiverse, is a global platform advancing the AI-enabled Citiverse—where AI, spatial intelligence and digital twins converge to deliver real-world impact. Supported by over 70 partners worldwide, the Initiative brings together governments, industry and the UN system to promote safe, open and interoperable ecosystems, enabling public service transformation, economic growth and digital trust.

At the 2nd Citiverse Assembly, three flagship deliverables were launched:

• The AI-Enabled Citiverse: A Strategic Blueprint for Future-Ready Cities
• AI‑Enabled Citiverse: Foundational Capabilities and Enabling Technologies for Cities
• City Leader’s Field Guide: Preparing for the AI-Enabled Citiverse

The AI-enabled Citiverse is already emerging. The window of opportunity to shape it is open now to all.

We invite every national, regional, and local government, and partner to help open this even further.