Preparing for civil society’s AI future: reflections from NCVO’s AGM

These speaking notes are based on Zoe Amar’s presentation at NCVO’s Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 15 October 2025. The text below has been edited for clarity and is not a word for word transcript. You can read more about the event on Third Sector and Civil Society. 

Here is everything I have read about the future in a nutshell:

The future belongs to three groups: those who make the AI tools, those who can use them successfully, and those who can do what the tools cannot. Civil society must choose which role it wants to play.

By 2035, two seismic forces will reshape everything we do.

First, greater inequality. Late stage capitalism isn’t going anywhere, and AI disruption will concentrate even more money and power in fewer hands. However much progress we make on equality, the gap between those with money and those without will widen. There will be more for civil society to do, and more complex problems to solve, with not much more resource to do it. We will have to cherry pick where we focus our efforts. 

This means civil society must become an even better early warning system. We need more collaboration and better data sharing across the sector to spot inequality trends before they become crises. When we work in silos, we miss the patterns that could help us prevent harm rather than just respond to it.

Second, AI transformation. 76% of charities are already use AI according to our Charity Digital Skills Report. Imagine where we’ll be in a decade. We’re still in the foothills of all the change we are going to see. The way we deliver services, fundraise and support people, and communicate will look very different. Fundraising will look completely different – AI will handle donor research, personalise appeals, and predict giving patterns at scale in ways we can barely imagine today.

Here’s what we must do now:

Plan for the future of our workforce urgently. This is the conversation we’re not having, and it concerns  me. Outside our sector professions from accountants to the NHS are already looking at this. We need to map the skills we need for the future and the skills we need to get there. 

What happens to fundraisers when AI writes the appeals? What about charity admin staff when we bring in agentic AI at scale? To make my position clear, I’m not here today advocating mass automation – I’m advocating for agency. We must hold workforce decisions carefully, plan thoughtfully, not make knee jerk cuts based on cost. Our people are skilled and have incredible knowledge of the communities we serve. We must use AI to augment the fantastic, talented people we have in the sector, not just automate them.

Protect what matters most. In an automated world, our sector’s superpower is human connection – help with a human face. But to preserve this, we need new partnerships across all sectors to build products and services that are ethical, inclusive, and fundamentally human.

We need to be bold about speaking truth to power. As a woman of colour, I want to see more charity leaders find their voice on the rising tide of nationalism across the UK. We saw 150 leaders write a letter to government last week- which is great, and we need to build on this. We can and should do more. Charities are the glue holding communities together when social cohesion is on the brink of facture- we have more influence than we realise, and we owe it to future generations to use it. In 2035 we need to look back and know we were on the right side of history. 

The future can feel a long way away, but it is built brick by brick through the actions we take today. 2035 feels distant, but the transition has already begun. We’re at a moment where we can either own this change and shape it with empathy, or let it happen to us.

The question is: which future are we building?