Bahrain

The Shura Council of Bahrain has launched an integrated suite of AI-powered platforms that together cover the full range of parliamentary operations. The flagship Shura 360 platform consolidates all General Secretariat services into a single secure environment for MPs, while “Senad”, an AI assistant, supports research and information retrieval in Arabic. The Intelligent Hansard System uses AI to convert spoken session content into accurate written records, and the publicly accessible Legislative Tracker Platform covers the full legislative workflow since 2002, with real-time AI translation.

The Council of Representatives of Bahrain has achieved ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification, becoming one of the first legislative bodies to earn formal recognition for its AI management systems – a landmark in responsible parliamentary governance aligned with democratic values.

Dr Andy Williamson (Senior researcher at CIP, the IPU’s Centre for Innovation in Parliament) notes that there is nothing new about AI. But we have certainly embarked on a new level of AI integration. Technology can now engage with us directly, generate new content and predict outcomes. This could transform a wide variety of settings, including parliaments.