Path to AI Transformation: Accelerating Artificial Intelligence for True Social Good
Find inspiration in possibilities!
Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers remarkable potential to transform lives and address critical societal challenges, from healthcare disparities to climate change and beyond.
How can we ensure AI is leveraged for social good, prioritizing impact and equity?
In this compelling article, the Techronicler team has gathered insightful perspectives from business innovators, community advocates, and visionary thought leaders to answer a pivotal question:
What’s one way to accelerate AI’s application for social good while addressing urgent societal needs?
Their responses are rich with innovative strategies, meaningful partnerships, and advanced technologies to enhance AI’s role in creating a brighter future.
From championing inclusive data practices to building cross-sector collaborations and utilizing open-source platforms, these leaders offer actionable solutions to drive significant change.
Join us as we explore how AI can serve as a powerful force for good, tackling global challenges while supporting underserved communities.
Uncover the ideas shaping the future of AI for social impact and discover how we can work together to realize its potential for a more equitable world.
Read on!
Jessica Koosed Etting
To accelerate AI for social good, we need to focus less on futuristic use cases and more on solving the invisible problems that shape daily life now—especially for women and caregivers.
One of the most pressing is the mental load: the constant, behind-the-scenes management of tasks, schedules, and responsibilities that disproportionately falls on women. This burden quietly drives burnout, impacts health, derails careers, and reinforces gender inequities at home and at work.
AI has immense potential to offload these repetitive cognitive tasks—but only if the tools are accessible, intuitive, and built for everyday use. That means designing AI that fits into the real rhythms of people’s lives, not just enterprise systems or developer workflows.
Bridging the usability gap is essential if we want AI to deliver tangible relief—and real equity.
Jennifer Kaplan
One of the most powerful ways AI can advance social good is by serving as an early-warning and prevention system, identifying harmful or unintended consequences before they escalate.
For example, in the food sector, AI is already being used to scan Amazon reviews for early signs of contamination, detect toxic compounds pre-processing, and reduce food waste in foodservice by tracking disposal patterns in real time.
These applications don’t just improve operational efficiency, they protect public health, enhance sustainability, and create shared value across supply chains.
At Presidio Graduate School, we teach students to think beyond promotion and toward prevention. When used responsibly, AI can help organizations anticipate risk and course-correct quickly.
The greatest promise of AI may lie not in what it creates, but in what it helps us avoid.
Jennifer Kaplan
Instructor, Presidio Graduate School
Ilia Badeev
Globally, the most important factor influencing society, in my opinion, is the distribution of public funds.
The better and more appropriately they are allocated in a timely manner, the greater the effect society experiences (hopefully positive).
In this regard, AI could play a key role in the allocation of money – be it the state budget, a company’s budget, or a municipal budget.
AI could do this very quickly, in a timely fashion, and not just once a year, but monthly. It could also take into account a significantly larger number of factors than humans typically do.
Therefore, in my view, integrating AI into the process of budget distribution would be incredibly beneficial for society and could fundamentally transform many governmental and structural processes.
Ilia Badeev
Head of Data Science, Trevolution Group
Tej Kalianda
To drive AI’s impact for a better future, we need to focus on real-world, community-centered applications.
Take Synthetic Memories, a collaboration between artists, researchers, and technologists that helps people with dementia recall life events through AI-generated visuals. It’s a creative, therapeutic use of AI grounded in human need.
Or Rainforest Connection, which utilizes recycled phones and AI to detect illegal logging through sound analysis, thereby protecting forests in real-time.
What these projects share is not just strong technology, but deep partnerships with domain experts and communities.
That’s what moves AI from hype to meaningful impact when it’s integrated into people’s lives in practical, respectful, and empowering ways.
Tej Kalianda
Designer, Google
Lars Nyman
To accelerate AI for social good, I think we need to fund open-source, community-governed AI ecosystems that aren’t owned by Big Tech’s shareholder-obsessed machine.
Right now, most AI projects claiming “impact” are really just PR fig leaves stapled to surveillance engines. Real progress comes when AI is built with the communities it serves, not on them.
We need decentralized data co-ops, radical transparency, and incentives for engineers to work on hard problems (labor issues, elder care, etc), and not just ad optimization.
Public-private-philanthropic partnerships can fast-track this by backing “public infrastructure” AI: I’m thinking open models, ethical training sets, and human-in-the-loop safeguards.
AI won’t save the world if it’s built to maximize ad clicks and churn out copy slop and memes. But it might, if it’s rebuilt to maximize dignity.
Danielle Birriel
One effective way to accelerate the use of AI for social good is to create publicly governed “data-for-good trusts.”
These trusts would pool de-identified datasets from government agencies, nonprofits, and purpose-driven businesses, enabling researchers and social innovators to responsibly train AI models on real-world challenges.
To ensure ethical use, the trust would employ privacy-preserving technologies like differential privacy and federated learning. When combined with AI innovation sandboxes—which provide startups with cloud credits, expert guidance, and regulatory support—this model accelerates safe experimentation and rapid deployment.
This strategy bridges the gap between mission-focused ideas and scalable impact, helping AI address societal needs like healthcare access, disaster response, and climate resilience.
Danielle Birriel
Digital Marketing Executive, D&D SEO Services
Kate O'Neill
The fastest way to accelerate AI for social good is through open-source collaboration at scale.
Instead of every organization building AI solutions from scratch, we should create shared infrastructure that multiple sectors can customize for their specific needs.
OpenAI’s Whisper speech recognition model exemplifies this approach perfectly. With over 1 million downloads, it’s been adapted for accessibility tools helping hearing-impaired users and endangered language preservation projects documenting oral traditions. Rather than each organization developing separate speech recognition systems, they built upon shared foundations.
Similarly, platforms like Hugging Face Transformers power 100,000+ projects across climate research, healthcare, and disaster response.
When we establish common ethical standards and incentivize contributions to these digital commons, breakthroughs multiply exponentially across diverse social challenges rather than staying siloed in single applications.
Kate O’Neill
Founder & CEO, KO Insights
Alec Loeb
One way to accelerate AI for social good is by building industry partnerships that put community outcomes ahead of short-term wins.
At EcoATM, we partner with local governments and nonprofits to reduce e-waste and increase device reuse. The same model applies to AI. Tech companies should connect with hospitals, schools, and public agencies, not just to sell tools, but to solve real operational problems.
For example, an AI tool that predicts school dropout risks can only work when education departments and software firms align on shared goals, data standards, and training.
Teams must also keep the tools simple. Overbuilt systems stall adoption. In healthcare, AI can support early detection of disease, but only if the user interface works for the nurse in a small clinic and not just the CTO of a major hospital.
Strip out features. Focus on function. Track outcomes and refine. That approach creates long-term value.
AI will help more people when businesses stop chasing scale first and start with clarity. What do partners need? What’s the simplest way to deliver it? That’s how you align speed with purpose.
Partnerships that deliver on clear needs will move faster, earn trust, and avoid waste.
James E. Francis
“AI is most powerful when it’s used to bring people together and solve real-world problems.”
Focusing on community-driven AI solutions is one of the best ways to advance AI for social good. Rather than just top-down innovations, we should create collaborative spaces where tech companies, local communities & governments can co-develop AI tools tailored to specific needs.
For example, in healthcare, AI can help doctors make faster, more accurate diagnoses, but it’s crucial to ensure these solutions are developed with input from both healthcare workers and patients to meet their real needs.
Another game-changer is AI-powered education. By making AI tools available in schools, we can create personalized learning experiences that help every child, regardless of their background, succeed. This kind of AI democratizes access to resources and empowers the next generation.
The key to making all of this work is making sure we embed ethics and fairness from day one. AI should be a tool for everyone, not just the few.
James Francis
Founder, Artificial Integrity
On behalf of the Techronicler community of readers, we thank these leaders and experts for taking the time to share valuable insights that stem from years of experience and in-depth expertise in their respective niches.
If you wish to showcase your experience and expertise, participate in industry-leading discussions, and add visibility and impact to your personal brand and business, get in touch with the Techronicler team to feature in our fast-growing publication.
