Aspen Ideas to Go

The number of people using chatbots for their news is increasing. According to a 2026 report, 10 percent of all people globally use chatbots–that’s up from 7 percent in 2025. Trust and interest in news is also declining. The highest purpose of journalism is to serve needed information to the public. But what happens when AI is affecting every aspect of news–how it's produced, distributed, and consumed? How can media and technology best respond? Patrick J. McGovern Foundation CEO Vivian Schiller leads a conversation with Laurie Richardson, Nabiha Syed, and Sam Gregory. Richardson is Vice President for Trust and Safety at Google. Syed leads the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to build a better technology future, and Sam Gregory fights deepfakes and deceptive AI with his organization, WITNESS.

We don’t all learn in school how to participate in democracy. And a lack of understanding about how our government works can feed frustration, cynicism and apathy. In the age of the internet, there’s an opportunity to fill those educational gaps for people and empower them to get involved. But how do you send a signal through the noise, and motivate people civically? Sharon McMahon is a former public school teacher who turned to social media and found a new audience. With her civics content, she’s built up an audience of 1.8 million people who call themselves “The Governerds.” She also writes a daily government and current events newsletter called The Preamble, and wrote the best-selling book “The Small and the Mighty.” McMahon sits down with Kelly Corrigan, the host of the podcast and NPR show “Kelly Corrigan Wonders,” for a conversation about bringing democratic basics to more Americans.

Some internet content creators are building major platforms by analyzing, dispensing and sometimes reporting current events. But how can viewers gauge credibility in this Wild West? And what is the role of legacy journalism in an increasingly fragmented media landscape? Veteran reporter Katie Couric joins two leaders charting a new course in journalism, Jerusalem Demsas, founder of The Argument web magazine, and Aaron Parnas, an independent journalist and former attorney speaking to audiences from TikTok and Substack. The dean of Columbia Journalism School and New Yorker writer, Jelani Cobb, moderates and guides the conversation.

After the deadliest terror attacks in United States history occurred the morning of September 11, 2001, sweeping changes to security were put in place. The 9/11 attacks gave rise to the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Congress passed the Patriot Act and President George W. Bush declared a global war on terror, leading to the detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Now, 25 years later, the effects of the nation’s large-scale security response linger. NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly asks former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales whether the measures adopted then should still be used today. The speakers, who were all involved in the 9/11 response, share sobering memories of that day. Their conversation was held in June.

The current appeal of authoritarian regimes around the world is raising questions about whether democracy has a future. What’s sparking these political backlashes and what has soured voters on democratic systems and values? Stanford political scientist and the author of “The End of History,” Francis Fukuyama, joins Canadian journalist-turned-politician Chrystia Freeland and New York Times columnist David French at the 2026 Aspen Ideas Festival for an informed and varied conversation taking a harder look at democracy. CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria moderates the discussion.

With the midterm elections on the horizon, will voters overcome a fraught electoral battlefield to show up at the polls? Threats to the electoral system such as polarization, misinformation, campaign finance, redistricting, and limits to the Voting Rights Act are reducing voters’ trust. How can the system be rebuilt in a way that inspires confidence across the political spectrum? Heather Gerken leads a conversation with Rick Hasen, Janai Nelson, Sarah Isgur, and Ben Ginsburg. Gerken is president of the Ford Foundation; Hasen is a professor of law at UCLA; Nelson is President and Director-Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund; Isgur is editor of SCOTUSblog; and Ginsburg is a political law advocate.

China’s ups and downs reverberate across the globe, and unpredictability from Washington has been throwing another wrench into the equation. Good diplomacy and an open trade relationship between these two superpowers is essential, but the playbook keeps changing. In this talk from the 2026 Aspen Ideas Festival, three experts on U.S.-China relations bring us up to date on technological advances, economic leverage and national security, among other foreign policy affairs. Dan Wang, a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, joins Melanie Hart of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and Julian Gewirtz, a research fellow at Columbia University and the Asia Society. CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria moderates and guides the panel.

In an era of executive overreach, Congress and the Supreme Court are becoming less effective at reigning in presidential power. America’s three branches of government–the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial–were created to regulate each other. But the nation’s founders didn’t anticipate headwinds like the rise of modern political parties. A healthier inter-branch dynamic is needed, says a panel of leading scholars, to create a stable environment for the American concept of government to succeed. Journalist John Dickerson leads a conversation with Georgetown Law Professor Stephen Vladeck, Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith, and Maya Kornberg, a senior research fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice.

With so many problems in the world, it can be easy to skip over what’s actually working. But while progress often isn’t linear, history tells us that a lot of societal issues have actually improved. The experts on this panel help us see those bright spots and reframe our thinking to include hopeful visions for the future. Greg Jackson, a professor at Utah Valley University and the host of the “History Doesn’t Suck!” podcast joins Google Labs editorial director Steven Johnson and the host of the “What Could Go Right?” podcast, Zachary Karabell, for a wide-ranging discussion at the 2026 Aspen Ideas Festival about breaking through the doom and gloom.

Since the conflict in Iran began in February, the results have been mixed. It has degraded Iran’s nuclear capacity, reduced its missile arsenal, and sunk its navy. But the war has also closed the Strait of Hormuz, divided America’s Gulf allies, fractured the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and failed to achieve objectives like regime change and nuclear elimination. A panel of Iran experts with different perspectives discuss whether the conflict could mark the end of the Islamic Republic’s long strategy of proxy warfare or the beginning of a far more dangerous Middle East. Journalist and author Fareed Zakaria leads the conversation with Kim Ghattas, Karim Sadjadpour, and Mark Dubowitz. Ghattas is an Emmy-award winning journalist. Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mark Dubowitz is CEO of Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Their conversation was held June 29.