Dealing with the Oncoming AI Train: Ummatic Challenge and Opportunity

We are four years into what is likely a thirty-year revolution, one that could end with the destruction of humanity or with the end of scarcity. The train is coming either way, and we as individuals, as an ummah, and as humanity have to rise to the challenge of it. This talk puts the question to the builders in the room: is there a way to build great businesses that are also aligned with an ummatic strategy for AI?

Who this is for

Founders, builders and technologists who already use AI every day and are deciding what to build next.

On the table

• The three levels of the challenge, personal, ummatic and humanity, and why the ummatic level is where builders have the most leverage
• The ethical framework: Islamic scholarship is at the forefront of thinking about AI, and recent scholarly work on dual-use technology gives builders a way through the genuinely hard cases, from what you build to who you build it for
• The ummatic strategy: AI sovereignty, meaning the ability to build, adapt, assess and influence the AI systems we already depend on, and the three layers where that work happens, from foundation models, to adapting open-weight models to Islamic values and knowledge, to improving the general-purpose systems people already use

You'll leave with

• A clear picture of what an ummatic AI strategy looks like for a builder
• An ethical framework grounded in Islamic scholarship for the hard calls along the way
• Where in the stack a Muslim-built business fits