The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a significant new commitment, pledging at least $1 billion over the next two years to promote the widespread and equitable use of artificial intelligence and AI-driven solutions across the globe. The initiative, unveiled on September 15, 2026, in Seattle, is designed to help more people access knowledge, opportunities, and solutions that have historically been out of reach.
Coinciding with this financial pledge, the Foundation has released its tenth annual Goalkeepers Report. Titled "Creating Change - AI, Equity, and a Moment of Decision," this year's report zeroes in on artificial intelligence, urging immediate global action to ensure this rapidly evolving technology helps close the gap between the world's richest and poorest populations, rather than widening existing inequalities.
The report emphasizes that the future beneficiaries of AI are not predetermined. Instead, the choices made today are critical, and the window to influence the trajectory of this technology is remarkably narrow. Through case studies of its partner organizations, the report illustrates how AI is already improving lives in real-world settings such as clinics, classrooms, and farmlands.
In his foreword to the report, Foundation Chair Bill Gates addressed the core motivation behind this initiative. He noted that one of the foundational purposes of the foundation is to address a fundamental market failure: those who need help the most often lack the power to influence where innovation and investment are directed. He stressed that AI presents this same challenge, but at a much faster pace, and without deliberate intervention, the most powerful tools will be developed first for those who can pay, not necessarily for those who stand to benefit the most.
The report outlines three critical priorities to ensure AI benefits a broader population. First, AI tools must support all languages, as over 90% of the data used to train early large language models comes from English sources, leaving many potential beneficiaries largely unrepresented in the foundational knowledge base. Second, these tools must be designed using local data and tailored to local contexts, requiring community control over data management and protection. Third, investment in human capital and accessibility is essential, empowering doctors, farmers, teachers, and developers to not only use AI but also to evaluate its effectiveness and adapt it to their specific circumstances.
The new funding will be deployed across several key areas over the next two years. Approximately 40% of the investment will support education initiatives, including the development of AI tutoring tools to provide personalized learning support. Another 40% is earmarked for health, focusing on diagnostic and clinical decision support tools for frontline health workers, improving maternal and newborn health, and accelerating the discovery of new drugs and vaccines. The remaining funds will be split between agricultural support, offering tailored AI-based advice to smallholder farmers, and building the digital infrastructure necessary for equitable AI, including language datasets for tools that are currently underdeveloped.
The Gates Foundation is calling on like-minded partners to join these efforts, contributing resources, expertise, and advocacy to make AI more useful, inclusive, and affordable. As Bill Gates concluded, success should be measured not only by what AI can do for its most commercially valuable users but also by what it can deliver for those most likely to benefit from it.