Shaping AI
to better serve people, society and planet.

If harnessed with care and accountable to the public, AI technologies could help meet human needs and build the fair, democratic and sustainable societies we want to live in.

Philanthropy and organisations interested in the public interest have a crucial role to play to ensure AI is supporting, not eroding, human equality, dignity and our shared quest for a healthy planet. 

That’s why the European AI & Society Fund mobilises a community of funders and organisations working in the public interest to shape AI that works for everyone, not just the powerful few.

Since 2020, we’ve partnered with 20 funders to award €13.6 million to public interest organisations across 27 countries to influence the AI debate, set the policy agenda, and secure accountability. The Fund put €4 million into the public interest field in 2025 to shape the AI debate, set policy and secure accountability. Together we’re shaping AI that serves people, society and planet. 

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Grantee stories

Homo Digitalis

Challenging the use of AI-surveillance for citizen and border control in Greece 

 

Greece, as an external EU border country, has long been used as a testing ground for intrusive technologies. Backed by EU funding, Greece is increasingly using AI-automated surveillance to monitor its citizens, control asylum seekers, and turn away migrants at its borders. Homo Digitalis, Greece’s first digital rights organisation, has been investigating and shaping the use of AI at a national and European level. It coordinates the Greek AI Network and has published papers on the enforcement of the AI Act in Greece. Homo Digitalis also litigates against the development and deployment of intrusive AI systems.

 

With support from the European AI & Society Fund, Homo Digitalis has become a strong human rights watchdog in the field of AI development and deployment, especially on matters related to technology-led policing and border management activities. As the AI Act is implemented in Greece and across Europe, Homo Digitalis is advocating for it to deliver genuine accountability and protection of fundamental rights.

Homo Digitalis
Homo Digitalis present at a conference

Novi Sindikat

Mobilising Croatian trade unions so AI-driven platforms recognise gig workers as employees and improve working conditions 

 

Since more food delivery platforms entered the Croatian market in 2019, it’s become clear that their AI-driven management systems are worsening working conditions for gig workers, impacting their livelihoods and mental health. With help from the European AI & Society Fund, Novi Sindikat mobilised fellow Croatian trade unions to understand the plight of gig workers and join a pan-European campaign to implement the EU Platform Workers Directive.  

Successfully enacted in 2024, in Croatia this means that gig workers no longer have to declare themselves as self-employed or rely on contracts from dodgy intermediary organisations. They are employees by default, making it easier for them to hold AI-powered platforms – their employers – accountable and fight for better working conditions.

Novi Sindikat
Food delivery riders assemble in a public square

European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance

Advocating for sex workers’ digital rights

 

 

AI has created new challenges for online sex workers, who are often overlooked as gig economy workers. To counter this, the European AI & Society Fund funded the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA), a sex worker-led network of more than 100 organisations, overall several years to help sex workers advocate for their digital rights and strengthen a community that is often overlooked.

Funding from the European AI & Society Fund since 2020 has enabled ESWA to be recognised as experts at the intersection of digital and sex workers’ rights. As well as engaging their members, wider civil society and new funders, this is helping them establish relationships with social media platforms to promote an online environment that respects the human rights of sex workers.

European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance

FEMYSO

Empowering young Muslims to track and call out AI Islamophobia

 

AI systems can embed and amplify Islamophobic biases. In 2024, the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO), demonstrated how easy it is to break the safeguards of several chatbots and generated over 270 examples of Islamophobic bias.

FEMYSO used this evidence to urge AI companies to take action against in-built discrimination in their systems. With support from the European AI & Society Fund, FEMYSO also developed an AI Islamophobia tracker.

FEMYSO
A group of young Muslim women and a man stand smiling at the camera, with lanyards around their necks.

Health Action International

Protecting patients’ care and rights from AI-driven healthcare systems

 

With AI being used to support elderly care, accelerate medicine research and development, diagnosis and mental health support, AI systems risk deepening health inequalities by using inaccurate health data, reinforcing bias and stripping patients of autonomy. Patient data captured by AI systems is also at increased risk of data breaches, and secondary use for commercial purposes by technology and pharmaceutical companies.

To counter this, the European AI & Society Fund funded independent non-profit organisation Health Action International (HAI) to become an expert on AI and health – and share their knowledge with civil society, policymakers, practitioners and journalists. With our support, they also developed their leadership skills and went on to create the Digital Rights Health Alliance, a coalition of other health justice organisations advocating for fairer application of AI in healthcare.

Health Action International
Two older people sit at a table looking at a tablet

News

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18 funding partners pledge €10million to redirect AI

The European AI & Society Fund has attracted partners from both Europe and beyond.

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5 lessons from our grantmaking and field building to take into 2026

What we learnt about supporting the public interest field in a year of turbulent geopolitics.

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News

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18 funding partners pledge €10million to redirect AI

The European AI & Society Fund has attracted partners from both Europe and beyond.

Read more
See all reports

Publications

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Funders’ briefing: Standing up for safeguards

In this funders' briefing, the European AI & Society Fund sets out how civil society groups are rallying rapidly to respond to the EU's deregulation push, and how funders can help them.

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