AI
AI for Social Good

Applying AI to some of the world’s biggest challenges

Through research, engineering, and initiatives to build the AI ecosystem, we’re working to use AI to address societal challenges.

At Google, we believe that AI can provide new ways of approaching problems and meaningfully improve people’s lives. With AI, we have another tool to explore and address hard, unanswered questions. What if people could predict natural disasters before they happen? Track disease as it spreads, to eliminate it sooner? Or dramatically improve the lives of people with disabilities?

AI can help, but it’s not a silver bullet: tackling these questions requires a concerted, collaborative effort across all sectors of society. At Google, we believe that we can meaningfully contribute, drawing on the scale of our products and services, investment in AI research, and our commitment to using and developing AI responsibly. We’re doing that through AI for Social Good, a program that focuses Google’s AI expertise on solving humanitarian and environmental challenges.

Our work through the program centers around supporting core research and engineering efforts and empowering the social sector with tools, resources and funding, while engaging with partners across all sectors to have the biggest impact. Further, we are tackling problems within public health, nature & society, climate & energy, accessibility and crisis response.

We also strongly believe the ability to find these solutions relies on the expertise of people around the world. That’s why we’ve opened up research centers in Japan, India, Israel, and Accra and are also partnering with nonprofits, academia and public sector organizations to create systemic solutions.

Working together to apply AI for social good

Supporting COVID-19 AI and data analytics projects

Through a Google.org + University Relations joint program, $8.5M+ in funding was awarded to 31 NGOs and academic groups that are using AI and data analytics to aid in COVID-19 response efforts. Projects span across the world and focus on key areas where new information and action is needed to help mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

AI Impact Challenge

Google.org issued an open call to organizations around the world to submit their ideas for how they could use AI to help address societal challenges. We received applications from 119 countries, spanning 6 continents with projects ranging from environmental to humanitarian. We selected 20 organizations to support. These selected organizations are receiving customized support to help bring their ideas to life: coaching from Google’s AI experts, Google.org grant funding from a $25M pool, credit and consulting from Google Cloud, and more.

Get started with machine learning basics

We’ve developed a guide with educational content to support social impact organizations interested in using AI. Whether you’re a novice or interested in upleveling your ML skill set, get started by exploring our guide.

Learn more about AI for social good projects at Google

We’re working on research and engineering projects focused on using AI for social and environmental impact. Explore some of our recent projects.

Research

Research is core to our mission to bring the benefits of AI to everyone