Use of AI in the Humanitarian Sector

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a game-changer across many industries, and the humanitarian sector is no exception.  With constrained resources and urgent needs, AI is a crucial tool for helping humanitarian organizations make smarter, faster decisions, and increase efficiency and effectiveness of their work.

A recent survey by The Humanitarian Leadership Academy and Data Friendly Space found out that 93% of 2,539 humanitarian workers surveyed from across 144 countries and territories have been using AI in their daily work.

Yet, at the organizational level, the AI integration remains limited. The lag in formal AI adoption and integration by organizations with tools and policies has reduced the impact that AI can have on productivity boost. While these tools can be effective, sector-specific solutions offer greater outcomes. From supporting operational activities, program monitoring and evaluation, to educating children and enabling participatory program design based on feedback by beneficiaries, sector-specific AI applications are transforming the humanitarian sector. Let's explore how:

Adaptable to organizations' needs

Sector-specific AI tools are adapted to the specific needs of organizations, their programs and beneficiaries. They offer outcomes based on in-house data, institutional memory, and beneficiary feedback, making their use more targeted and pertinent to organizations' specific needs. 

Enhanced ethics and data protection

Humanitarian work often involves handling sensitive data in high-risk contexts. Sector-specific AI solutions can provide stronger safeguards for data and align with the organization’s ethical and AI policies, unlike general commercial tools. 

Offline capabilities

Humanitarian workers often carry activities in remote areas with limited internet connectivity. Thus, the reliance on internet-based commercial AI tools can be a challenge. Purpose-built AI tools can address this challenge by providing offline capabilities, allowing workers to access critical tools and data without relying on continuous internet access.

Assistance rather than replacement

And eventually, sector-specific AI tools are built to assist rather than replace human workers. Especially when co-developed with organizations to adapt to their needs, such applications help with fast data analysis which is used for timely decision-making, something crucial for this sector, where quick response to crises is an essential part of work. 

Challenges remain

Integrating AI in humanitarian work requires investment towards developing workers’ technical skills, promoting AI literacy, adopting AI policies and ensuring ethical use and data privacy. Despite widespread individual use of AI, only 3.6% of survey respondents considered themselves to have expert-level AI skills, which underscores the  informal and self-directed nature of most AI adoption in the sector.  

As the report highlights, this skills gap is compounded by an AI governance vacuum: widespread individual use of AI tools is happening without corresponding organizational frameworks. This combination creates serious risks for data sovereignty, privacy protection, and ensuring that AI practices remain aligned with core humanitarian principles.

Despite the mentioned risks, the humanitarian sector’s inherent adaptability means that AI adoption can be both feasible and highly impactful. AI is no longer an emerging technology, it is an integral part of this sector, supporting the human touch that relies at the heart of humanitarian work.