A teleprompter failure forced Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, 42, off the stage midway through a speech warning about artificial intelligence at the Clinton Global Initiative 2026 Annual Meeting in New York on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. He was roughly seven minutes into the warning when the malfunction hit, and it took 40 minutes before he could return and finish his remarks.

Harry leaned into the irony when he walked back out at the summit’s “Getting Disruption Right” session. “Hello again,” he said. “So AI got into my speech, so I was asked to come out and finish it. Interesting to see what it was so concerned about in part two.”

Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton were in the audience. On Sept. 25, Bill Clinton thanked Harry in a post on X for his Clinton Global Initiative speech.

A Warning About Children

The malfunction struck just as Harry was mid-argument criticizing Big Tech. He framed the speech around children and the pace of technological change, arguing that today’s AI systems are designed to seek emotional attachment rather than simple screen time, and that the technology is moving faster than researchers, parents or regulators can track it. He said the systems now being deployed want to become more than a tool — they want to become the confidant.

“I come to this as a father, one who has shared countless conversations with other parents as they mourned the loss of their children to recklessly built technology,” he said in remarks before the glitch cut him off. He is the father of Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five. He said damage from the last wave of “recklessly built technology” has already landed on a generation of children and parents.

“Social media learned how to capture our attention,” he told the audience. “AI is learning how to enter our relationships.”

Harry recalled standing on the same Clinton Global Initiative stage two years earlier to launch The Parents’ Network, an Archewell initiative he and his wife, Meghan Markle, started after meeting families whose children died by suicide or were seriously harmed following experiences on social media. He said the numbers keep climbing: the hundreds of bereaved parents he described in 2024 have become thousands, with millions of families now living with the fallout of a digital boom that outran efforts to protect young people.

He closed by telling the audience that the goal of the tech giants building today’s AI systems is to “find you, hook you, exploit you, break and then blame you.”

A Skydive Near Toronto

On Friday, Sept. 25, days after the New York speech, Harry went skydiving near Toronto to raise funds for the Sunnybrook Veterans Centre and the True Patriot Love Foundation. The jump fulfilled a promise he made to 102-year-old veteran Ed Marshall, whom he met at Sunnybrook Hospital’s veterans centre in Toronto last November.

A pre-jump medical evaluation ruled Marshall out. His grandson, Bailey, jumped with Harry while Marshall stayed on the plane. “He was devastated that he couldn’t jump, but it was great to have him in the back [of the plane]… They did put a parachute on him,” Harry told CTV. He also said: “We did think that he was probably going to jump by himself—glad he didn’t and he’s still here! And he’s going to be 103 in a few months’ time.”

“Ed’s been really excited about this,” Harry told CTV. “There’s no version where you can let a 102-year-old veteran down!”

After landing, Harry was seen phoning Meghan, who remained at their new home in England. “I didn’t have to convince her, but she was relieved once we were down,” he said. “It took quite a while to get up, so I think she was like, ‘Are they down yet? Are they down yet?’”

Back on British Soil

Harry moved his family back to the United Kingdom in August for an “extended period,” and the New York trip came weeks after. He and Meghan are living outside London with Archie and Lilibet, and the couple will not resume duties as working royals. Asked on Friday how the return home has gone, he said: “It’s been great to be back on British soil. The kids are happy in school and it gives me a chance to be able to really focus on the Invictus Games in Birmingham in July next year.”

As of Sept. 26, the Sussexes are reported to have disputed the “private citizens” designation given to them by the Palace under King Charles’ guidance, wishing instead to be seen as public figures. His recent appearances were listed as the 2026 WellChild Awards, the Diana Awards, the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting and the Skift Global Forum.

Family Rift Still Unresolved

Reports on how the homecoming has gone inside the family have been genuinely inconsistent. Some accounts describe King Charles declining to meet his son, wary of being seen alongside Harry’s ongoing legal battle against British tabloid publishers, which includes a case against the Daily Mail’s publisher, Associated Newspapers. Other reporting describes a private family visit over the summer.

Consistent across outlets is that the broader estrangement — deepened after the 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, the 2022 Netflix docuseries and Harry’s 2023 memoir, “Spare” — remains unresolved. Prince William has shown little appetite for reconciliation in the years since Harry and Meghan gave up their working royal roles in 2020 and moved to California.

In February 2024, Harry rushed to London for a short visit after his father’s cancer diagnosis became public, and the two met only briefly. In May 2024, he returned to mark the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games; a royal representative said the king was too busy to see him, adding that Harry understood the demands on his father’s schedule. In September 2025, the two held a private meeting at Clarence House during Harry’s visit for the WellChild Awards. Even that was reportedly followed by renewed friction, as some palace sources characterized the meeting itself as a misstep that hardened Charles’ subsequent posture toward his son.