Article by Nadiya Safonova, Hannah Chafetz, and Stefaan G. Verhulst: “In 2025, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data organization recorded more than 185,000 violent events. This is nearly double that of 2021. Not only is the level of conflict growing, the nature of warfare is changing. Technologies such as drones, artificial intelligence (AI), and smartphones are increasingly being used for military combat and defense purposes.
The use of these technologies for warfare is pulling more civilians into conflict. Anyone in possession of a smartphone can easily transmit vital information in real time, including positions of troops, military equipment and persons of interest. Civilian participation in warfare comes with a higher risk of death and injury.
Conflict can also unfold online through communication technologies. This includes disinformation campaigns aimed at eroding public trust, and hate speech aimed at exacerbating tensions between groups. This can spark, prolong and escalate physical conflicts.
However, these technologies can also serve another purpose—one that promotes, builds, and maintains peace.
Over the last several years, peace technologies (or PeaceTech) have emerged around the world and have provided new pathways to promote human dignity and rights. Yet, what are the latest developments in the field of PeaceTech and how are technologies shaping peacebuilding efforts?
In what follows we highlight several examples of PeaceTech launched or updated in 2025 and explain how they are being applied before, during, and after a conflict. We conclude with cross-cutting takeaways across these examples.
The examples were collected through desk research in February 2026 and do not aim to be fully comprehensive. It is rather a selection of technologies used in different conflicts across the globe. As technologies rapidly evolve, this blog provides a snapshot in time and does not assess the ethical implications of these technologies…(More)”.
