Change.org leans into AI with $100 million investment
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Change.org was founded as a venture-backed organization, before a 2021 restructuring that saw investors like Reid Hoffman and Sam Altman donate their shares to a nonprofit structure.
- Now the group tells Axios that it's investing around $100 million of its own money to rebuild its core petitions platform via AI.
Why it matters: This could increase the effectiveness of Change.org petitions, beyond just getting added signatures, thus further empowering civic engagement.
What they're saying: "The most nonpartisan thing for someone to say in America is that their voice doesn't matter," says Change.org founder Ben Rattray, who rejoined as CEO three years ago. "We're trying to transform trust in democracy from the ground up."
By the numbers: The group says that it hosts more than 500,000 petitions each year, signed by hundreds of millions of people.
- Rattray also says there is internal auditing to ensure that amplification is "politically balanced."
Zoom in: The AI rebuild began with the beta introduction of an AI copilot for petition creators, which helps in drafting, identifying possible endorsers, and providing clearer paths to decision-makers.
- The second phase is using AI to expand human services at scale, by aggregating custom data. For local petitions with at least 100 signatures, employees do direct outreach to elected officials on behalf of the citizen petitions — literally calling them on the phone to engage.
Yes, but: Rattray believes AI has its limitations, despite the big investment and increased token spend.
- It's found that petitions reliant on AI-generated images and text are less effective than those made by humans. The same goes for videos made by supporters.
- The platform also has policies against people using AI agents to auto-sign petitions, believing that it risks breaching trust with both citizens and decision-makers.
