World leaders gathered to mark the 80th birthday of the U.N. General Assembly, while the Global Citizens' Assembly met for the first time to deliberate on climate and food crises. The assembly aims to connect communities globally and strengthen international cooperation on climate, AI, and global security. Citizens' assemblies have been shown to produce more effective policy, reduce polarization, and combat misinformation. The Global Citizens' Assembly seeks to link local assemblies into a global network to enhance global governance and address gaps in the existing multilateral regime. The Global Citizens' Assembly allows for continuous, distributed human-machine collaboration to address global challenges at the speed and scale required in today's world, with members understanding the practical necessity of peace, justice, and equality. Just as nation states committed to global collaboration in 1945, ordinary people must be at the heart of global governance today.