Incubating the AI for Good Project, Evidence Action has supported the development of a comprehensive cross-sector analysis examining AI applications across global development — evaluating 30+ interventions for their potential impact and scale readiness in low and middle-income countries. Now published, this analysis will inform the AI for Good Project's work to drive AI readiness and meaningful access to AI's benefits for the 3.5 billion people living in poverty globally.
Developed with guidance from advisors including Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Kent Walker (President of Global Affairs for Alphabet and Google), the report identifies tractable, high-impact opportunities to improve the lives of tens or hundreds of millions of people.
Key Findings Across Sectors
AI presents an opportunity to drive step-change impact across key social sectors in low & middle-income countries (LMICs):
- Downstream Agriculture: AI-driven weather forecasting and AI-created agricultural advice appear ready for near-term deployment. AI-generated weather forecasts could be delivered to tens of millions of farmers at extremely low marginal cost, with potential to generate billions in economic gains.
- Downstream Health: AI models show high accuracy in diagnosing medical images like chest X-rays for tuberculosis. AI can also extend mental health support to the 85% of people with mental disorders who today receive no treatment at all.
- Education: AI 1:1 tutoring appears ready for scale, with randomized control trials in LMICs showing 1-2 years of schooling gains in just a few months of use.
- Humanitarian Response: AI weather forecasts for early-warning systems show high near-term potential. Spending $800M on early warning systems in LMICs would avoid losses of $3-16BN annually.
What's Next for AI for Good?
The AI for Good Project is now advancing the highest-scoring interventions through deep-dive evaluation and operational scoping. The project aims to scale AI-enabled "big bets" that improve the lives of tens or hundreds of millions in LMICs, with plans to launch at least one at-scale intervention within two years.
This work was incubated at Evidence Action, building on our track record of reaching 530M+ people with cost-effective, evidence-based programs across 9 countries in Africa and Asia. Evidence Action remains focused on scaling proven interventions in safe water, deworming, nutrition, and disease prevention.