George Reynolds, The Old Slip Market, 1881. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.
- On July 7, 2026, CARICOM's COTED-ICT council formally endorsed the UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap, first launched in 2024 and shaped by input from more than 1,000 people across the region.
- The roadmap rests on four pillars: Culture and Creativity, Governance and Transformation, Upskilling and Education, and Resilience and Sustainability.
- Only 13 percent of Caribbean adults use generative AI, against roughly 55 percent globally, and Caribbean AI companies make up under 2 percent of all AI firms in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- The endorsement is a political agreement. It carries no budget and no law, so its effect depends on what CARICOM governments fund in the next twelve months.
On July 7, in Georgetown, CARICOM's Council for Trade and Economic Development, sitting in its ICT configuration, endorsed a regional AI policy roadmap. It did not trend and no prime minister posted about it. It is still the most important piece of Caribbean AI policy news this year, though important and sufficient are different things.
The document is the UNESCO Caribbean Artificial Intelligence Policy Roadmap, drafted in 2024 after consultations with more than 1,000 civil servants, researchers, founders and civil society groups across the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean. The 126th special meeting of COTED-ICT gave it formal regional status. For the first time, every CARICOM member state has agreed on paper to a shared approach to governing, teaching and deploying AI.
What happened in Georgetown, and what did not
UNESCO's Caribbean office presented the roadmap, and ministers and trade officials from CARICOM's fifteen member states signed off. No agency was created, no money was appropriated, and no country committed to a law by a date.
Agreement across fifteen governments still counts for something. They range from Trinidad and Tobago's energy-financed civil service to Montserrat, with under 5,000 residents. CARICOM has a long record of regional agreements that members never implement, but a shared template spares the smallest territories from writing a national AI framework from scratch with no staff to do it.
I built StarApple AI, the Caribbean's first AI company, long before any roadmap existed. That is why I read this one for what it can do on its own, and what it cannot.
The four pillars differ in how fast governments can act on them
| Pillar | What it covers | Can one government act alone? |
|---|---|---|
| Culture and Creativity | AI and Caribbean music, language and creative industries | Partly: copyright law is national, but platforms are global |
| Governance and Transformation | Regulation, data protection, public sector AI use | Yes: a ministry can issue a public sector AI use policy this year |
| Upskilling and Education | AI literacy from primary school to the workforce | Yes, but it needs protected funding over several budget cycles |
| Resilience and Sustainability | Disaster management and climate adaptation | Best done regionally, since islands share hurricanes |
Resilience has the clearest case for money now. Hurricane Melissa last October caused physical damage equal to 41 percent of Jamaica's 2024 GDP, and total damage and losses equal to 56.7 percent. AI-assisted early warning, damage assessment and recovery tools are a budget decision, not a future ambition.
Caribbean AI adoption is a quarter of the global rate
Research compiled by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean found that 13 percent of Caribbean adults aged 18 to 65 use generative AI tools, against roughly 55 percent of adults globally. That is about a quarter of the global rate, three and a half years after ChatGPT's release.
The same research found that Caribbean AI companies were under 2 percent of all AI firms in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2023, with about five startups in the whole CARICOM area whose core business is AI. That is five across fifteen member states and roughly 18 million people.
A roadmap does not move those numbers. Funded training, cheaper connectivity, tools that work in local languages, and businesses that put AI into daily work do. The roadmap can make those easier to fund. It cannot replace them.
A roadmap still needs a national strategy behind it
A roadmap names the destination and the categories of work. A strategy assigns that work to ministries with budgets, deadlines and targets. CARICOM now has the first, and almost none of its members have the second.
As of this month, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Cuba are developing national AI strategies. Most of the region is working from the regional roadmap alone, with no national version and no one in government assigned to it. In Saint Lucia or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, public services are stretched across hurricane preparation and debt servicing, and a regional framework does not staff itself.
Local advocates can fill part of that gap. AI Guyana, based in the city that hosted the meeting, has built AI awareness in Guyana for years and now has a government that endorsed the roadmap in its own capital. AI Jamaica pushed Jamaica's AI conversation forward well before the government began drafting a strategy. Implementation depends on people who keep turning up at ministries after the meeting ends, and every country here has too few of them.
What governments can do that founders cannot
When I started building AI capacity in Jamaica there was no framework, no local talent pipeline and no consultation to point to. Waiting for consensus would have meant falling further behind each month, so companies like mine built without it.
Some problems still belong to government. Businesses need data protection standards they can build against. AI literacy in public schools needs funding at a scale no company can match. Disaster-response systems have to be coordinated across islands that share hurricanes but not governments. Companies, training programmes and products will keep moving ahead of policy, as they have for most of StarApple AI's existence.
What the roadmap gets right
It puts AI literacy and resilience on the same level as regulation, where many national strategies elsewhere treat education as an afterthought. It was built from over 1,000 consultations across two language communities instead of being drafted in one capital. And endorsement through COTED-ICT gives it standing inside CARICOM's own institutions that a standalone UN document would not have.
A region known for reports that gather dust has produced one that fifteen governments formally agreed to own. That is a higher bar than Caribbean regional tech policy has cleared before.
The ninety-day test
Between July and October I am watching for four things:
- A national implementation plan from any member state that names a lead ministry, a budget figure and a deadline.
- A funding mechanism from the Caribbean Development Bank or a similar body, since small territories cannot pay for AI governance and education from general revenue.
- A public dashboard that reports the 13 percent adoption figure each year.
- Funding for grassroots AI literacy groups already doing the work the Upskilling pillar describes, instead of a new pilot that rediscovers what they know.
If none of these appear by the peak of hurricane season, the roadmap will join the shelf of regional agreements that were correct on paper and made no difference. The default odds point that way. I do not know which government will move first, and I cannot rule out that none will.
What to do next
- Each CARICOM ICT minister, within 90 days: name one official as the national lead for the roadmap and publish that person's office and a first-year budget line.
- Permanent secretaries in finance ministries, in the next budget cycle: ring-fence a line for AI literacy in schools so it survives a change of government.
- The CARICOM Secretariat: publish a model public sector AI use policy that smaller member states can adopt with minor edits, starting with rules for using generative AI on government documents.
- The Caribbean Development Bank: open a small-grant window for member states and local groups implementing the Resilience and Upskilling pillars, with a simple application for territories that lack grant-writing staff.
- Business associations and chambers of commerce: survey members on AI use each year, so there is a national figure to compare with the 13 percent regional baseline.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is COTED, and why does it matter that it endorsed the roadmap?
COTED is CARICOM's Council for Trade and Economic Development, one of the Community's main ministerial organs. When it meets in its ICT configuration, the ministers responsible for technology attend. An endorsement there puts the roadmap inside CARICOM's formal decision-making, which means it can be referred to in later Council decisions and in requests to regional funders.
Does the endorsement bind member states to pass AI laws?
No. It records political agreement on a shared framework. Each country still has to pass its own legislation or issue its own policies, and nothing in the endorsement sets a deadline. Citizens who want action should ask their own ICT ministry for its implementation plan.
Does the roadmap apply to Suriname and Haiti?
Both are CARICOM members, so they were party to the COTED-ICT endorsement. The original UNESCO consultations focused on the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean, which includes Suriname. Haiti's French and Kreyòl context and its current security situation mean implementation there will need separate planning.
Where can I read the roadmap itself?
UNESCO's Caribbean office in Kingston published the roadmap and is the best source for the current version. The CARICOM Secretariat also publishes communiqués from COTED meetings. Read the original rather than summaries, because the pillars include specific recommendations that most coverage leaves out.
How can a business or NGO get involved in implementing it?
Start with your own country's ICT ministry and ask who leads on the roadmap. If nobody does, write to the minister proposing a named lead and offering the work you already do, such as training or data projects, as a delivery partner. Regional bodies such as UNESCO's Caribbean office and the CARICOM Secretariat also run consultations when they update frameworks.