Using Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping how decisions are made across industries, governments, and civil society. From supply chains to satellite imagery, it is helping to deliver faster insights at greater scale.

Over the past 18 months, we have partnered with Scout Impact to explore how AI can strengthen programme learning, test assumptions, and generate evidence that supports both strategic and operational decisions. Their AI-driven “mission platforms” help us understand what’s actually happening on the ground by bringing together data from people, sensors, satellites and the web. It connects the dots across complex systems and reveals timely insights, supporting smarter, faster decisions and strengthening impact across our programmes.

In our Circular Economy Programme, we’re piloting an accessible mobile app designed to recognise and reward the work happening across the green value chain, often in places formal systems overlook. Reclaimers and small business owners simply speak into the app or snap a quick photo to log the type, volume and value of the materials they handle. No forms, no jargon, just a tool that works with and for them.

By capturing this data in real time, the app builds a verified record of work and income. That record can open doors to things many of us take for granted, like access to credit, insurance and visibility in the economy. For micro and small enterprises, it offers built-in accounting tools and AI-driven insights to help them grow their businesses with confidence.

And it’s not just about supporting workers at the frontline. The data feeds into a wider platform that shows where waste comes from, how people are paid and the carbon footprint at the very start of the chain. In a world where anyone can fake data in seconds, tools like this help build trust grounded in real, human effort.

Through our partnership with Amathuba Collective, a South African social enterprise supporting young people from under-resourced and unstable urban communities, we are using AI to better understand their lived experiences as they move through long-term work placements.

Scout’s audio analysis engine is processing years of phone-based support calls, transcribing and evaluating them pseudonymously. What would have taken teams months of manual analysis is now being revealed overnight. This is helping us assess what kinds of support are most effective, when interventions matter most, and how to adapt programmes to meet young people where they are.

With Scout, we’re building a platform designed to serve the people and value chains at the heart of our work, not just track outcomes but help shift them. AI plays a key role in helping us understand how our programmes are unfolding, whether we’re on track and where we can adapt. It’s already uncovering insights that traditional monitoring might miss, helping teams and partners make faster, better-informed decisions and strengthening learning across everything we do.