Avoiding the Next Digital Divide: Defining Digital Sovereignty for Tribal Nations in the AI Age
Morgan Gray, Kennedy Satterfield, Traci Morris, and Nicol Turner Lee
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) presents a unique opportunity to transform core governmental functions in the face of constrained resources and increased public demand, enabling governments to do more with less. Governments, businesses, universities, nonprofits, and other entities are already integrating AI models into organizational processes to improve tasks and services, such as health care provision, language preservation, economic development, research, and administrative planning. Tribal Nations occupy a unique position within this landscape to thoughtfully explore, shape, and lead the use of AI in ways that advance Tribal sovereignty, strengthen governance, and reflect community values.
As of December 2025, there are 575 federally recognized Tribal Nations in the United States that each maintain a nation-to-nation relationship with the federal government. While distinct in their respective histories, languages, cultural practices, and people, each is a sovereign nation with the inherent authority to self-govern and make decisions about how to manage its internal affairs. The right to self-governance and self-determination extends beyond traditional government functions, such as providing services to Tribal citizens like health care and education. Tribal Nations retain other sovereign powers, including the authority to tax; pursue economic development ventures; determine how its lands, territories, and natural resources are used; manage its own infrastructure, including digital networks; and manage the use of emerging technologies when it implicates internal interests.
As AI becomes increasingly embedded into organizational structures worldwide, AI governance has evolved into a foundational component of a Tribal Nation’s digital sovereignty strategy. The term Tribal Digital Sovereignty (TDS) describes a Tribal Nation’s authority to control and manage its digital ecosystem by establishing governance structures for how assets, resources, and technologies are collected, stored, used, and shared both within the community and beyond. This includes managing data, physical infrastructure, such as wireline or wireless networks, digital assets, such as wireless spectrum, and the use of software and other emerging technologies within its lands and territories.
Drawing on research, discussions, and feedback from the recent AI in Indian Country Conference, this paper explores AI’s opportunities and risks for Tribal Nations. The terms Tribal Nation, Tribe, and Tribal government are used interchangeably throughout this paper for stylistic purposes. While describing communities, identities, and populations connected or adjacent to Tribal Nations, the terms Indigenous, Native American, American Indian, and Alaska Native are not used in this paper. Rather, the intention of the authors is to emphasize the political and sovereign identity of a Tribe as a nation—a role “Tribal Nation” captures more fully.
This paper examines how AI implicates data privacy, bias, misrepresentation, and unauthorized use of sensitive cultural information of Tribal Nations, along with use cases among Tribal Nations that are actively engaging emerging technologies. This paper also examines other themes from the conference, including sovereignty as a design principle; data governance; capacity and competence; interconnected digital ecosystems; and ethics and cultural continuity—all of which are aspects of AI governance. Each of these factors requires careful consideration by tribal nations leveraging AI. At the end of the paper, the authors share recommendations for Tribal leaders, government, and industry that reflect feedback from conference attendees about Tribal leaders’ role in governance, use cases, and policies that comply with Tribal code, while regulating to limit systemic biases in design and implementation.