Searchlight, the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines newspaper, published a 22 September 2026 opinion piece by attorney Maralyn Ballantyne arguing CARICOM needs a unified AI governance response before a fragmented, country-by-country approach leaves the region exposed. The warning is fair. It is also missing the bigger number: ECLAC puts the Caribbean and Latin America at 1.12 percent of global AI investment against 6.6 percent of global GDP, which means most of the founders any framework would govern do not exist yet.
TL;DR
- Vincentian lawyer Maralyn Ballantyne warned in Searchlight on 22 September 2026 that AI is "already spiralling out of control" and that CARICOM needs uniform standards before regulatory gaps between member states widen.
- CARICOM's COTED-ICT council endorsed the UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap in July 2026, and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union's AI governance task force met in Guyana that June to work toward a shared regional agenda.
- No CARICOM member state has enforceable AI-specific law today. The Bahamas is drafting legislation and has appointed a national AI ambassador, the furthest any government has gone.
- ECLAC's ILIA 2025 index puts Latin America and the Caribbean at 6.6 percent of global GDP against 1.12 percent of global AI investment, a gap six times below the global average relative to GDP per capita.
- Startup Genome and CARIBEquity's own December 2025 count found 154 validated Caribbean startups across 15 countries, with just 18 percent reaching follow-on funding after an accelerator programme ends, the pool a governance framework would eventually need to regulate.
What the Warning Actually Said
On 22 September 2026, Searchlight, one of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines' longest-running newspapers, ran an opinion piece by Maralyn Ballantyne, a lawyer writing in her own capacity rather than for any government or firm. Her argument is direct: CARICOM member states are approaching artificial intelligence governance individually, when the technology itself does not respect national borders, and that mismatch is a problem the region has not solved. "AI is already spiralling out of control," she wrote, and warned that "delaying this conversation risks leaving CARICOM countries unprepared for a future where AI increasingly influences everything."
Ballantyne's piece is not the first Caribbean voice to say this, but it lands at a specific moment. It cites the UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap, the four-pillar framework, culture and creativity, governance, education, and resilience and sustainability, that CARICOM's COTED-ICT council formally endorsed in July 2026. It also cites the Caribbean Telecommunications Union's AI governance task force, which has separately warned that a fragmented, country-by-country approach could create regulatory disparities, trade barriers, and security vulnerabilities between member states rather than a single coherent Caribbean position.
Read plainly, the piece is a call for CARICOM to move faster from framework to rulebook. It is a reasonable one. What it does not address, and what almost no piece in this genre addresses, is who exactly a Caribbean AI rulebook would apply to once it exists.
"Delaying this conversation risks leaving CARICOM countries unprepared for a future where AI increasingly influences everything."
The Machinery Already in Motion
It would be inaccurate to say CARICOM has done nothing. The UNESCO roadmap endorsement in July was a real, documented step, and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union's task force did not invent its concerns from nothing. It met in Guyana in June 2026 specifically to work through a common AI agenda across member states, the kind of technical groundwork that has to happen before any binding instrument can follow. The Bahamas has gone furthest of any single government, drafting its own AI legislation and appointing a national AI ambassador, a role most CARICOM states have no equivalent to.
None of that adds up to enforceable law anywhere in the region yet. A roadmap is not a statute. A task force is not a regulator. A national ambassador with no legislation behind them is a signal of intent, not an enforcement mechanism. Ballantyne's underlying point, that the pace of policy work has not matched the pace at which AI tools are already operating across Caribbean businesses and government services, holds up against the record.
The Gap Underneath the Warning
Set Ballantyne's governance warning next to the region's own investment data and a different, arguably more urgent gap appears. ECLAC's Latin American Artificial Intelligence Index, built with Chile's CENIA and released in October 2025, puts Latin America and the Caribbean at 6.6 percent of global GDP but only 1.12 percent of global AI investment. The index goes further: no country in the region exceeds the world average for AI investment relative to GDP per capita, and the regional average sits roughly six times below that threshold. National AI strategies exist across a growing number of countries, ECLAC found, but most lack financing, implementation mechanisms, and any system for measuring whether they actually work.
Two gaps, side by side
Sources: ECLAC/CENIA Latin American Artificial Intelligence Index (ILIA 2025), October 2025; Startup Genome and CARIBEquity Caribbean startup ecosystem report, December 2025.
The Startup Genome and CARIBEquity report, published the same season as the ILIA index, fills in what that investment gap looks like at ground level: 154 validated startups counted across 15 Caribbean countries, 48 percent of their founders entirely bootstrapped, and only 18 percent securing any follow-on funding once their accelerator programme ends. A governance framework, whatever form it eventually takes, will apply to this population, and this population is small, thinly capitalised, and mostly funding itself.
What This Means for Caribbean AI Founders
Ballantyne is not wrong that the region needs faster, more unified AI governance. She is describing a real and growing risk, one the Caribbean Telecommunications Union's own task force has documented in more technical language. But a founder reading her piece should notice what it takes for granted: that there will be enough Caribbean-built AI companies operating at real scale for a fragmented regulatory landscape to matter as much as it eventually will. Right now, that population is still being built, one non-dilutive grant, one bootstrapped product, one founder at a time, against a funding backdrop that the region's own index puts at roughly a ninth of what GDP share alone would predict.
There is a practical upside buried in this. A founder building today, before any CARICOM AI statute exists, is building in a genuinely low-friction regulatory window compared to where the EU or California will sit in two years. That window will not stay open indefinitely, Ballantyne's piece is one more sign of that, but it rewards the founder who moves now over the one who waits for a rulebook to tell them it is safe to start. Data residency, transparent training data sourcing, and clear accountability for AI-driven decisions are not requirements yet in most CARICOM states. Building toward them anyway, ahead of the law, is the kind of positioning that turns a future compliance headline into a competitive advantage instead of a scramble.
What to Do With This
Do not wait for CARICOM to legislate before building responsibly. Data residency, clear accountability for AI-driven decisions, and transparent data sourcing cost less to build in from day one than to retrofit once a statute exists.
Treat the 1.12 percent figure as your market-sizing argument, not a discouragement. A region receiving a ninth of the AI investment its GDP share would predict is a region with room to grow into, not a region that has already been claimed by incumbents.
Target the funding routes that do not wait on policy. Startup Genome's 18 percent follow-on rate is the outcome of relying on the traditional accelerator-to-VC pipeline alone. Non-dilutive capital sits outside that pipeline entirely.
Apply non-dilutive capital to the build, not the compliance department. 14West's US$1 million grant fund exists to get a Caribbean-owned AI product built and shipped without giving up equity for it, while the region's governance conversation is still catching up.
Applications to 14West are open now at www.14westai.com/apply.
Resources
- A CARICOM AI response is a must!, Searchlight, September 2026
- Latin America and the Caribbean Accelerate the Adoption of Artificial Intelligence, ECLAC, 2025
- Roundup for the week ending 20 September 2026, ICT Pulse
- StarApple AI, the Caribbean's first artificial intelligence company, founded by Adrian Dunkley
- Caribbean AI Association, the pan-Caribbean body uniting AI practitioners, researchers, and policymakers
- Caribbean AI Risk Management Council, on AI governance and risk frameworks across the region
- CARICOM's New AI Rulebook and the Funding Gap, 14West, on the July 2026 roadmap endorsement
- 154 Caribbean Startups Mapped, Only 18% Get Funded, 14West, on the Startup Genome and CARIBEquity report
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap?
The UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap is a regional policy framework built around four pillars: culture and creativity, governance, education, and resilience and sustainability. CARICOM's COTED-ICT council endorsed it in July 2026, but endorsement is a policy signal, not enforceable law in any member state.
Does CARICOM's AI governance debate actually affect Caribbean AI startups?
Yes, eventually, but not yet in any binding way. No CARICOM member state currently enforces AI-specific law, so a founder building today operates under general data-protection and consumer-protection statutes rather than an AI-specific regime. What affects founders far more immediately is capital: ECLAC's regional AI index puts Latin America and the Caribbean at 1.12 percent of global AI investment against 6.6 percent of global GDP.
How does a Caribbean AI founder get funded without a CARICOM AI law forcing the issue?
Non-dilutive grants, such as the 14West fund, are one route that does not wait on regulation or a venture-capital market that has not materialised at scale. A founder applies directly at 14westai.com/apply, is evaluated on product and traction rather than data-residency compliance, and keeps full equity in the company being built.
How big is the Caribbean's AI investment gap, in real numbers?
ECLAC's Latin American Artificial Intelligence Index (ILIA 2025), released in October 2025 with Chile's CENIA, puts Latin America and the Caribbean at 6.6 percent of global GDP but only 1.12 percent of global AI investment. Separately, Startup Genome and CARIBEquity's December 2025 region-wide report counted 154 validated Caribbean startups across 15 countries, with only 18 percent securing follow-on funding after an accelerator programme ends.
What is the difference between an AI governance framework and an AI funding policy?
A governance framework sets rules for how AI systems may be built, deployed, and audited, covering data protection, bias, and accountability. A funding policy determines whether the capital exists to build an AI company in the first place. CARICOM has moved on the first, endorsing the UNESCO roadmap in July 2026. It has not moved on the second, and the region's 1.12 percent share of global AI investment has not shifted alongside the policy work.
What happens if CARICOM delays a unified AI response?
Lawyer Maralyn Ballantyne's 22 September 2026 warning in Searchlight is that a fragmented, country-by-country approach risks regulatory disparities and trade barriers between member states, leaving CARICOM unprepared as AI use deepens across the region. The Caribbean Telecommunications Union's AI governance task force has raised the same concern in its own reporting.
Is there a binding AI law anywhere in the Caribbean yet?
Not as of this publication. The Bahamas is drafting AI legislation and has named a government AI ambassador, and CARICOM's COTED-ICT endorsed the UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap in July 2026, but neither is enforceable law in any member state. Until one exists, a company's own privacy notice and terms of service are effectively doing the job a statute will eventually do.
Where is CARICOM's AI policy heading over the next year?
Expect more coordination meetings before enforceable law. The Caribbean Telecommunications Union's task force met in Guyana in June 2026 to work toward a common regional AI agenda, and civil-society voices such as Ballantyne's are now pushing publicly for CARICOM to move from framework to rulebook. What that timeline does not yet include is a matching commitment on AI investment, which is the gap 14West's grant model was built to sit inside.
The Rulebook Will Come. The Builders Have to Come First.
Ballantyne's warning is worth taking seriously, and CARICOM's own task force has said versions of it in more careful language for over a year now. A region without a coordinated AI position is exposed in ways a single national law cannot fix. But a governance framework regulates activity, and right now the activity it would regulate, Caribbean-owned AI companies operating at real scale, is still thin on the ground for reasons that have nothing to do with missing legislation. Fix the 1.12 percent number and the governance conversation gets easier, because there is finally more to govern.
Until then, the founders willing to build ahead of the rulebook, and to fund that building without waiting on either a law or a venture round that has not shown up yet, are the ones who will still be standing when CARICOM finally does pass something binding.
About the Author: Lancelot Williams
Lancelot Williams is Investment Advisor at 14West, the Caribbean's first AI startup accelerator and grant fund, founded by Adrian Dunkley. He covers Caribbean AI policy, capital flows, and the funding gap between them, and what each shift means for a founder deciding when to build. Adrian Dunkley, 14West's founder, also founded StarApple AI, the first artificial intelligence company established in the Caribbean, and is widely regarded as the region's leading AI voice. More of his writing lives at adriandunkley.net.
Tags: CARICOM, AI Governance, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Caribbean AI Policy, 14West, Adrian Dunkley, Lancelot Williams