Purpose There is no artificial intelligence (AI) without people. People design and develop AI; they modify and use it and they have to reorganize the ways they have carried out tasks in their work and everyday life. National strategies are documents made to describe how different nations foster AI and as human dimensions are such an important aspect of AI, this study sought to investigate major national strategy documents to determine how they view the human role in emerging AI societies.

Approach Our method for analyzing the strategies was conceptual analysis since the development of technology is embedded with conceptual ideas of humanity, explicit or implicit, and in addition to deepening analysis of explicit argumentation the method enables the deconstruction and reconstruction of meanings and conceptual relations within the strategies, exposing presumptions and tacit commitments of the writers.

Findings The analysis of the documents illustrates that the general tendency in national strategies is globally dominantly technology-driven as the state of affairs appears to be creating new technologies. However, various human research points such as usability, user experience, sociotechnical and life-based themes are less well represented. Because national strategies are used to develop innovation processes, we argue that future development of national strategies could be improved by taking human research issues more energetically in the agenda.

Originality Our study elaborates the current trends in AI-policy discourses and discusses reasons and possibilities for more holistic policymaking, making it a valuable resource for policymakers, researchers, and the larger public.