Strengthening Systems Change Practices with AI
Augmenting human capabilities to acheive greater systemic impact
At PolicySolve, we've been exploring how to bring AI into systems change practices as a strategic thought partner, going beyond human capability. This focus on augmentation (rather than efficiency) is strengthening our systems change practices. Come learn alongside us!
Documenting AI Learnings
Visit the AI & Systems Change Medium Blog to learn about:
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The Guardrails that help align our AI use with our systems practice and our values
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Concrete examples of our use of AI in the context of a systems change practice
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Practical advice on prompting, bias management, using AI in real-time with partners, and more.
AI use in a Systems Analysis
One of our recent AI experiments was the use of multiple AI platforms as an assist in a highly complicated 10-year retrospective analysis of how a global-to-local system changed. The findings in the report make visible what is possible when AI is used to help augment human capability to handle complexity. Check out the methods section in the full report to learn more about the AI use.
AI & Systems Change Chatbots
We have been experimenting with how a well-trained AI can help systems change thinking. Instead of treating all generative AI platforms as equally able to inform our thinking, we've prepared a set of chatbots that are trained on distinct sets of materials, designed to test and challenge our thinking in specific ways.
AI Prompts for Systems Change Use
Best practices in the use of AI for systems change include intentionally preparing your AI through training (see the Chatbot examples above) and through the prompts you use. We have a few example prompts available as a starting place.
Trainings in AI for Systems Change
Over the last year, we've begun delivering hands-on trainings and longer workshops that build capacity to use AI in new ways as part of a systems change practice. Building on both our own and others use cases allows the trainings to be grounded in practice along with building skills. Contact us to learn more!
Recommended Immediate Access Online Training
PolicySolve's AI Use Policy
Generative AI is everywhere right now, reached for reflexively across our sector and rarely with the scrutiny it warrants. For those of us working toward equity, justice, human rights, and a thriving environment, that default raises real questions. It calls for a fundamentally different approach.
At PolicySolve, AI functions as a strategic thought partner, not a substitute for human judgment. Our focus is augmentation: extending our capacity to hold complexity, pressure-test strategies, and push analysis further than we could go alone. The ethical reasoning, relational intelligence, and contextual knowledge this work requires remain irreducibly human.
We bring diligence to every decision to engage these tools. That means attending to the platform, the data we are sharing, and whether the application genuinely adds value in that moment. If it does not, we don't. And where possible, we bring AI into collaborative work with partners rather than deploying it behind closed doors, because this kind of change happens in relationship, not in isolation.
Generative AI also carries real environmental costs: energy, water, compute. Because we are committed to a thriving planet, intentional engagement is itself an environmental practice. We reach for these tools when the purpose is clear and the value is real, and we do not treat them as always-on infrastructure.
We share this publicly because we believe it matters for the field. Applied wisely, these technologies can strengthen our collective capacity for the systemic change the world needs. Applied carelessly, they can quietly undermine the very values we are working to advance. We hope this models what thoughtful practice can look like, and we would love to hear how others are approaching it.