The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) across industry, government, and education highlights the urgent need for robust frameworks to conceptualise and guide engagement. This paper introduces the Hierarchy of Engagement with AI model, a novel maturity framework inspired by Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The model conceptualises AI adoption as a progression through eight levels, beginning with initial exposure and basic understanding and culminating in ecosystem collaboration and societal impact. Each level integrates technical, organisational, and ethical dimensions, emphasising that AI maturity is not only a matter of infrastructure and capability but also of trust, governance, and responsibility. Initial validation of the model using four diverse case studies (General Motors, the Government of Estonia, the University of Texas System, and the African Union AI Strategy) demonstrate the model's contextual flexibility across various sectors. The model provides scholars with a framework for analysing AI maturity and offers practitioners and policymakers a diagnostic and strategic planning tool to guide responsible and sustainable AI engagement. The proposed model demonstrates that AI maturity progression is multi-dimensional, requiring technological capability, ethical integrity, organisational resilience, and ecosystem collaboration.

Speech recognition is definitely one of the areas where artificial intelligence is showing its power and effectiveness. And what is the last thing that journalists, secretaries, and assistants wish to take care of? But whether for interviews or parliamentary reports, new AI-based applications emerge as useful support tools to let the machine do the boring part of the job and allow people to focus on more demanding and intellectually challenging tasks. In the next year, the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) is set to introduce HANS – AI system that will be a valuable ally to the work of lawmakers and employees of the Riigikogu. By deploying speech recognition, it will increase the efficiency and accuracy in transcripts of the sessions.

Ott Velsberg, Estonia's fresh-faced, 28-year-old chief data officer, is on a mission put AI into every part of the country's public services, from healthcare to education and job centres. "The aim is to make government more proactive and responsive to people's life-events," says Velsberg. Instead of citizens having to apply for things like driver's licences and school places, he envisions a system where public bodies can anticipate and preemptively respond to the needs people have at different stages of their life. "We're not telling people what to do. That might happen in China but not in Estonia, or in Europe as a whole."

Estonia, a tiny Northern European nation of fewer than 1.4 million inhabitants, has made impressive strides in digitizing, streamlining, and modernizing its government functions. Estonia famously launched its "e-residency" program that allows practically anybody -- including foreigners -- to access Estonian government services.

At 48 years old, Kersti Kaljulaid is Estonia's youngest president ever, and its first female president. A marathon runner with degrees in genetics and an MBA, she spent a career behind the scenes--mostly as a European government auditor--before being elected by Estonia's legislature in 2016. Known for its digital government, tax, and medical systems, Estonia is planning for the future. The country's "e-resident" program--which allows global citizens to obtain a government-issued ID card and set up remotely-operated businesses in Estonia--has attracted 35,000 people since 2014. Now the government is discussing a proposal to grant some rights to artificially intelligent systems.