Book cover

REBOOT

AI And The Race To Save Democracy

Beth Simone Noveck

Published by Yale University Press

Democracy needs a moonshot. Reboot offers a practical blueprint.

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Most books about AI and democracy focus on what could go wrong. Noveck does something harder: she shows us what working right looks like. Drawing on real-world experiments, she demonstrates that AI can strengthen democracy—if we design it that way.

Jennifer Pahlka

Author of Recoding America

At a time when many fear AI will erode democracy, Noveck shows us how to make it democracy’s most powerful ally. A vital, hopeful roadmap for institutional renewal.

Audrey Tang

Coauthor of Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy

Be prepared to work if you read this excellent book. Noveck makes you think about some of the hardest questions facing democracy and technology today, and I found myself revisiting my positions more than once

Vint Cerf

Internet Pioneer

Noveck has spent her career designing and deploying technology in democratic institutions, and it shows. Reboot is a clear, practical, and important book about how AI can strengthen democratic institutions when designed responsibly. Essential reading for technologists, policymakers, and citizens—anyone concerned about the future of democracy.

Bruce Schneier

Coauthor of Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform our Government, Politics, and Citizenship

[Noveck's] insider’s knowledge of the government’s strengths and weaknesses and the pro-AI arguments she puts forth can be of invaluable help to everyone touched by AI, including elected officials and concerned citizens.

Carol Haggas, Booklist

Noveck musters her ideas with some verve and huge knowledge.

Benjamin Rees,

The Listener, New Zealand

Beth Simone Noveck

Beth Simone Noveck

Beth Simone Noveck is the author of Reboot: AI and the Race to Save Democracy (Yale University Press, 2026). A professor at Northeastern University with appointments in law, engineering, policy, communications and computer science, she directs The Burnes Center for Social Change and The Governance Lab. Her work focuses on “Democratic AI”or how to use AI to strengthen democratic institutions and improve government performance. She previously served in the White House, 10 Downing Street, and advised the German Chancellery, and founded the White House Open Government Initiative. She leads InnovateUS, which supports free public sector learning and its research initiative the Observatory of Public Sector AI, the largest collection of data on the public sector and its use of AI. She created AI for Impact, which designs and deploys open source AI tools to improve public outcomes. In 2026, Beth joined the Australian Resilient Democracy Network as a Global Fellow and the  Harvard Kennedy School as a Policy Fellow. Read more about Beth here and by her here

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