This article aims to contribute to the theoretical debate on the relationships between digital governance and social innovation, and their impact on policy making for creating and capturing value from effective solutions addressing societal challenges. In particular, we question the drivers and challenges specifically considering the growing number of national strategies for innovation driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and the consequent wave of investments. To this end, a framework is presented aiming, on the one hand, to connect key dimensions and value drivers of digital governance for social innovation and complex systems methods for policy making; on the other hand, to position AI national initiatives with regard to welfare state initiatives. The framework is then applied to the analysis of cases of AI-driven innovation initiatives in Europe to assess their impact on social innovation.