How Tamarack Uses Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is becoming part of how we work, learn, communicate, and make decisions. At Tamarack, we’re already using it in parts of our work, and we’re continuing to explore where it can be useful.
We also know there are real questions about what responsible use looks like.
Our approach is fairly simple: we use AI where we believe it can help us advance our mission, while being clear about where it should not replace people, relationships, expertise, or community voice.
We’re still learning what that looks like in practice, and we expect our approach to evolve.
Why We Use AI
For us, the starting point isn’t AI. It’s the work we’re trying to accomplish.
AI can help our teams spend less time on repetitive or administrative tasks and more time on the work that benefits from human attention. It can help us organize and make sense of large amounts of information, make our knowledge more accessible, and support research, writing, and analysis.
We’re also beginning to explore what comes next: whether AI and other analytical tools can help us better understand our members, spot patterns we might otherwise miss, strengthen forecasting, and generate insights that lead to better decisions.
We don’t see using AI as a measure of innovation on its own. It has to make the work better.
Where We Draw the Line
Some things shouldn’t be handed over to AI.
Tamarack does not use AI to replace community voice or lived experience. We won’t generate a community perspective when we could actually hear from the community.
We don’t use AI to make decisions about people, employment, funding, partnerships, governance, or organizational strategy. We don’t use it to fabricate quotations, stories, research, or experiences. And confidential or sensitive information should not be put into AI tools that haven’t been appropriately reviewed and approved.
There are also parts of our work where the human interaction is the work. Facilitation, relationship-building, dialogue, and creating space for people to work through difficult issues together can’t simply be made more “efficient” by removing the people from them.
The Tensions We’re Navigating
We think it’s important to be open about the fact that there are tensions in this work.
AI requires significant computing resources and has an environmental footprint. The data behind AI can contain biases and gaps that influence what it produces. There are legitimate questions about privacy and what happens to information entered into these systems.
There are also bigger questions about work. AI will change some jobs and some of the tasks within them. We want to think about that as both a technology question and a people question: where can AI increase our capacity, and where do we need to continue investing in the skills, judgment, creativity, relationships, and expertise of our staff?
And there’s tension around human connection that feels especially important for Tamarack. Sometimes efficiency is useful. Sometimes slowing down, talking to someone, hearing their experience, or working through something together is exactly the point.
We don’t think those tensions mean organizations shouldn’t use AI. We think they mean we should use it with our eyes open.
How We’re Approaching It
We have an internal Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence Policy that establishes expectations and boundaries for our staff. We’re strengthening our data governance, so we better understand the quality, ownership, movement, and appropriate use of the information behind our decisions. And we review new AI-enabled tools with privacy, security, equity, environmental, and other considerations in mind.
We’re also investing in learning. That includes helping staff understand how to use AI responsibly but also continuing to build the human capabilities that matter deeply to our work.
And we want to be transparent. When AI materially contributes to our public work, we’ll say so.
We’re Still Learning
We don’t have every answer, and we’re wary of pretending that anyone does.
Technology is changing quickly. So are the expectations around it. Our approach will change too as we learn more, hear from our staff and communities, and better understand both the opportunities and the consequences.
What we can commit to is continuing to ask whether our use of AI is helping us do our work better without losing the things that make the work human.
get in tOuch
We’re happy to answer questions, discuss community issues and direct you to trusted resources. Get in touch with a specific team member or submit a general inquiry.
stay up tO date
Enter your email and choose your subscriptions.