Every day, people across the emergency management community make decisions that can mean the difference between safety and tragedy. As natural disasters become more frequent, intense, and costly, those decisions are becoming increasingly complex as responders must process more information, coordinate across more agencies and partners, and act faster than ever before. Today, the AI for Disasters + Emergencies (AIDE) Initiative, led by the Markle Foundation in collaboration with Aspen Digital and RAND, released the AIDE Report, a first-of-its-kind assessment for advancing the responsible use across the emergency management community.

Drawing on research from emergency management practitioners and technology experts, the AIDE Report provides guidance for responsibly applying AI to enhance decision-making, build organizational capacity, and foster the cross-sector partnerships needed to better protect people and communities.

“One of the most important opportunities for AI is unlocking its capacity to serve the public good by helping communities become safer and more resilient,” said Ellen V. Futter, president of the Markle Foundation. “The AIDE Initiative seeks to activate and accelerate a path toward responsible AI adoption in one of society’s most critical areas of need: managing natural disasters. Used responsibly, AI has the potential to empower emergency managers with more complete information, to better and more quickly inform human driven decision-making to save lives and protect communities.”

Research from Aspen Digital and RAND is included in the AIDE Report, which collectively serves as the foundation for its recommendations:

• Aspen Digital, "Practitioner Perspectives and the Potential of AI in Emergency Management"
  • This report examines where AI can be most beneficial, what obstacles prevent responsible adoption, and what organizations need to use these tools efficiently while keeping humans informed. It does this by drawing directly from the experiences and viewpoints of emergency management practitioners.
• AI and Emergency Management's Future: Market Supply and Adoption Pathways, by RAND
  • In order to better match developing technologies with the demands of the emergency management community, this research looks at the current state of AI for emergency management, assesses adoption conditions, and identifies prospects.

Through the AIDE Summit, the AIDE Initiative will bring together leaders in emergency management, technology, government, business, academia, volunteer organizations and community groups to forge stronger alliances, exchange lessons learned and find ways to work together to better prepare for, mitigate, respond to and recover from disasters.

The AIDE Report, including the research conducted by Aspen Digital and RAND, is available at: www.AIDEinitiative.org/reports