In Astana this April, a three-day conference brought together government officials, employers, and workers to grapple with a quiet but urgent transformation: how artificial intelligence and digital tools are reshaping the way we protect people at work. The KIOSH 2026 conference, held April 28–30 and timed to mark the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, examined not just the promise of intelligent technologies, but their dangers—and the moral imperative to keep human well-being at the centre of how work is organized in the digital age.
For fourteen years, since 2012, KIOSH has served as the region's leading forum for dialogue on occupational safety and health. This year's gathering arrived at a pivotal moment. Digitalization is reshaping workplaces faster than many safety systems can adapt, introducing new risks even as it offers tools to prevent old ones. Yerbol Tuyakbayev, First Vice-Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Population, told participants that "digitalization is no longer just a tool, but the foundation of a new occupational safety and health system." Yet he cautioned that despite progress in reducing workplace injuries, governments, employers, and workers must remain committed to joint effort. Preventing harm, he implied, requires more than algorithms—it demands shared responsibility.
The conversations at KIOSH reflected a subtle but significant shift in how experts think about workplace safety. Rather than reactive fixes when injuries occur, participants emphasized proactive prevention supported by digital inspection systems and human oversight. But they also turned their attention inward, discussing psychosocial risks—workplace stress, burnout, the psychological toll of how work is designed and managed—as integral to occupational safety, not separate from it. These are harms that no algorithm can prevent alone.
The International Labour Organization presented its global report on the psychosocial working environment, underscoring how management decisions ripple through workers' lives. The data showed that the way work is organized and controlled profoundly affects health and safety outcomes. This finding carries particular weight as AI and automation reshape job design. Workers and governments alike must ensure that new technologies serve human needs, not merely efficiency metrics.
Mikhail Pouchkin, Director of the ILO Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, crystallized the stakes in a video address: "Every person has the right to safe and healthy working conditions," he said, emphasizing that new technologies must "serve human well-being, not undermine it." It was a simple formulation of a complex challenge—ensuring that the digital tools designed to protect workers don't instead become instruments of surveillance, intensification, or alienation.
The conference introduced E-Collab.OSH, a digital platform aimed at breaking down silos and building a culture of prevention across the region. By connecting practitioners, institutions, and social partners, the platform promises to share good practices in occupational safety—knowledge that can save lives. The KIOSH 2026 resolution that emerged from the three days called for strengthening safety systems through digitalization and better labour inspection, while reinforcing social dialogue and aligning national frameworks with international labour standards.
What emerges from Astana is not a simple celebration of technological progress, but a harder-won consensus: that in the world of work, technology must serve people—not the reverse. That shift in thinking, rooted in grassroots experience from across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, may prove as important as any algorithm.