Register hereInternational Organization for Migration (IOM)
IOM’s Discovery for Good – Putting AI in the hands of those closest to the problem
Booth Concept
The IOM booth at AI for Good will be an interactive discovery experience built on a simple conviction: innovation does not come from the top, it comes from the edges. It comes from the caseworker who sees the same bottleneck every day and knows exactly which intervention fails and why. From the protection officer who understands what a vulnerable migrant actually needs. That depth — the knowledge of a particular crisis, a particular corridor, a particular family’s situation — is irreplaceable. It lives in the people closest to the problem.
For too long, the tools to turn that proximity to a problem into a real solution belonged to a small group of people with access to capital, to networks, to innovation labs. That era is ending. You no longer need a billion-dollar idea. You need a real problem, a specific community, and the expertise to actually solve it.
The IOM Discovery Process was built for exactly those people and the IOM ‘Discovery for Good’ booth is where anyone can experience it.
The Booth Experience
Visitors to the IOM booth can engage in two ways:
1. Discover Your AI Use Case
At the heart of the IOM booth is an AI-facilitated, structured discovery journey that any visitor can participate in. The process draws on frameworks that were, for a long time, the province of well-funded start-up innovation teams.
In just five minutes, any visitor can have a conversation with an AI avatar that guides them through the IOM Discovery Process. The avatar asks about their work, their community, and the specific challenges they face every day. Drawing on the discovery frameworks, it surfaces the patterns in what they share and translates those into concrete, personalised suggestions for how AI could address their challenges.
Every visitor leaves with something real: a set of clear, specific AI for Good use cases grounded in their own context which are actionable ideas shaped by their expertise, their community, and the problems only they are close enough to see.
2. Explore IOM’s Flagship AI Portfolio
The booth will also showcase the tangible outcomes that have already emerged from this discovery-first approach across IOM’s global operations: award-winning AI applications and and tools that are already proving real operational impact. These are what happens when the expertise of people closest to the problem is paired with AI capability: faster humanitarian response, stronger programme design, and tools that serve migrants directly at every stage of the journey.
Why This Matters
IOM operates across more than 100 countries, working on some of the world’s most complex humanitarian challenges. With a 93% AI adoption rate among trained staff, over 5,000 staff trained, and more than 2,000 AI solutions built by staff themselves, IOM has demonstrated that the most powerful driver of responsible AI adoption is proximity to the problem.
The AI Discovery Process represents a replicable, scalable model for how any organisation such as UN agencies, governments, NGOs, or civil society groups can make AI work in their own context. Not by outsourcing the intelligence to a general model. But by combining what AI already knows with what a human expert, embedded in a specific community, can know.
Come and discover what becomes possible when AI starts amplifying human expertise.