Charities are being urged to improve their community engagement around decisions to use artificial intelligence across their organisation and services.

A report into AI use in the sector found improvements in its deployment among charities, in areas such as efficiency, communication and productivity.

But it warns that just under half of charities “rarely involve affected communities in AI projects” and only around one in seven engage with communities “often or very often” when deploying the technology.

The report says such engagement is important to reduce harm as users can “catch risks you miss” and helps to build trust through “transparent, two-way design”.

Also involving communities in AI decisions “results in real uptake”.

The report, by digital firm 3 Sided Cube and involving a survey of 123 representatives from the non-profit sector, found that around nine in ten charities are using AI “to some extent”.

However, the firm says charity sector “has crossed a tipping point” in which “adoption is the norm” and now the “the hard work shifts to quality of use, governance, and measurable value”.

It urges charities to add “community check-ins during key stages” and share clear information and answers to frequently asked questions “to support user understanding”

Two in three charities say the ethics of using AI are important however just over two in five charities do not yet have an AI usage policy in place, the report found.

3 Sided Cube chief executive Duncan Cook added: “AI has moved from if to how. The best teams are past the demos. They start small, prove value in human terms, and put simple guardrails in place.”

AI use among charities

The report found that the proportion of non-adopters in the sector has fallen from just under three in ten in 2023 to just over one in ten this year.

In addition, around one in six charities say AI is fully integrated across their organisation, which is four and a half times greater than the previous year. Three in four teams within charities say they are starting to integrate AI into their day-to-day work.

The proportion of charities reporting positive impacts of using AI has increased over the last year from just over one in ten to almost two in five.

One in three report improvements in efficiency, one in four around productivity, one in six in communication and around one in seven in data analysis, research, and content creation.

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