“The robots work at night”: How AI helps the world’s poorest, and where it falls short | GiveDirectly
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Published June 9, 2026 in Recipients
“The robots work at night”: How AI helps the world’s poorest, and where it falls short
In rural Rwanda, recipients of GiveDirectly cash transfers are using AI chatbots to plan businesses, navigate family conflicts, and ask questions they cannot take to anyone else. Their experiences reveal both the potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) in low-resource settings and the design gaps still limiting who these tools truly work for.
by Sharon Munyazikwiye, Carolina Toth
GiveDirectly is built on the core belief that people living in poverty know what they need better than anyone else. That belief is part of what led our team to test an unrestricted AI chatbot – with funding from Imara Fund, a foundation co-founded by Reed Hastings and Constance Jones – alongside cash transfers in Rwanda. This represents a different approach from the restricted AI tools many other organizations are offering.
The two of us had seen how much can hinge not only on money, but on access to the right information at the right time – Sharon from years of working directly with Rwandan entrepreneurs, and Carolina from designing programs for vulnerable communities around the world.
We know that cash gives people room to make their own choices. AI can be one way to help them make more informed ones, especially in places where reliable coaching, advice, and services are harder to reach.
AI is filling gaps that cash alone cannot
Alongside our usual one-time ~$1,000 transfers, we offered recipients in Rwanda a ChatGPT-powered chatbot on WhatsApp, developed with Turn.io, so they could ask questions in a tool many already know how to use.
Our team had three main uses in mind: helping people plan how to use their cash, think through business ideas, and get answers about the GiveDirectly program. And people do often use it that way. They ask how eligibility works, how to make spending decisions, and how to manage the practical details of new investments– from how to get fruit to a more distant market to caring for livestock.
But the more revealing pattern was how quickly recipients moved beyond those program-specific questions. They used the chatbot for the ordinary, messy decisions people bring to AI everywhere:
How do I manage conflict with my wife?
What should I do if my child is sick?
Where can I find markets outside my community?
Who can I trust in my neighborhood?
Recipients using the chatbot in this way isn’t particularly surprising or unprecedented. They use it the way people use AI everywhere: to think through money, work, family, health, and trust. But in many of the places we work, people often have fewer places to turn for a second opinion, practical advice, or timely information. The community health facility, business coach, or legal aid office that might otherwise have the answer may be far away, expensive, or entirely unavailable in their community. The chatbot suddenly put tons of it at their fingertips.
Recipients turn to the chatbot as a sounding board for business plans, family advice, and more.
All quotes are verbatim from inbound messages by Rwandan recipients, translated from Kinyarwanda.
Business advice
“I would like advice on small business.”
“What business has quick profits?”
“How to make a profit in three months?”
Family matters
“I have conflicts with the person I married.”
“Why does my child cough at night?”
“My child is in trouble, what should I do?”
Trust and authority
“What is the number of neighbors I should be cautious about?”
“What is needed to buy livestock and avoid being cheated by traders in the market?”
“What advice have the leaders given us?”
About GiveDirectly
“What is GiveDirectly money?”
“How much money does GiveDirectly provide?”
“When will the support reach us? Since our neighbors have received it?”
Curiosity
“I want to ask you if it’s okay to ask you anything.”
“Who are you that you answer me?”
“What can this chat bot help with?”
Swipe to see more<br>→
Source: Rwanda chatbot pilot inbound-message analysis, Nov 2025 – Feb 2026.
“The robots work at night”
Traditional training and support programs are often delivered during the day, at fixed times, and in group settings. But many people do not have the luxury of structuring their lives around when support systems are open, especially in places like rural Rwanda, where many people spend their days tending farmland or working a market stall.
A chatbot, on the other hand, is available whenever they are. It’s there after the children are asleep, during a quiet moment at work, or at the end of a long day when there is finally time to think. As one recipient put it in...