AI can help us respond faster, smarter to disasters

Amy Pope

When floods tore through parts of Bangladesh last year, families had little time to react.

In some communities, water rose so quickly that parents were forced to make impossible decisions in a matter of minutes: which children to carry first, which belongings to leave behind, whether to stay and protect what they owned or flee before roads became impassable.

By the time humanitarian responders arrived, many families had already lost homes, livelihoods and any sense of stability.

What makes stories like these so heartbreaking is that while natural hazards are not always avoidable, many of their worst human consequences are.

The warning signs were there: weather patterns, flood modelling, local vulnerability data, population movement trends. The world increasingly possesses extraordinary amounts of information that can help us understand where crises are likely to emerge and which communities are least equipped to withstand them.

Yet too often, that information exists in fragments.

Governments may hold climate forecasts, humanitarian agencies track displacement, development institutions map poverty and infrastructure gaps and private companies possess powerful analytical tools. But these systems still too often operate separately, despite serving the same communities.

The result is a familiar pattern: We respond after disaster strikes rather than acting early enough to reduce the damage.

This is where artificial intelligence (AI) could fundamentally change how we protect vulnerable communities.

When used responsibly, AI can help connect enormous volumes of data and identify patterns that humans alone would struggle to process quickly enough. It can strengthen early warning systems and help governments anticipate displacement linked to floods, droughts or conflict before people are forced to flee. It can help humanitarian agencies coordinate faster during emergencies and reduce wasteful duplication.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is already using these tools in practice — combining satellite imagery, climate projections and migration data to identify communities most at risk from climate-related displacement, helping responders act earlier and more precisely.

In other words, AI gives us an opportunity to move from reaction to anticipation — and from fragmented response to real resilience.

Human mobility today is shaped by interconnected pressures — climate shocks, conflict, economic instability and demographic change. More than 300 million people now live outside their country of birth, while millions more are displaced within their own countries. In Korea, migrants now make up more than 5 percent of the population.

Behind those numbers are families trying to hold on to what matters most: safety, dignity and the chance to build a future.

At IOM, we see every day how quickly lives can be upended when systems fail to keep pace with reality. We also see how dramatically outcomes improve when governments, humanitarian organizations and local communities are working from the same information and acting toward the same goal.

That is why Korea’s launch of the Global AI Hub is such an important development.

Korea’s own story gives this initiative real credibility. Within a generation, it transformed itself from a country devastated by war and dependent on international assistance into one of the world’s leading economies and technology innovators.

Now it is applying that experience globally — supporting communities affected by conflict, displacement and climate shocks, from Bangladesh to East Africa to Latin America.

At a moment when humanitarian needs are rising and resources are under growing pressure, Korea is helping build something the world urgently needs: stronger international cooperation around smarter tools.

Globally, governments are investing vast sums in AI, including for military purposes. Directing even a small share of that innovation toward life-saving humanitarian applications could be transformative — especially for early warning and faster, more effective responses.

The Global AI Hub has the potential to bring together governments, international organizations, researchers and the private sector to ensure that data is shared more effectively, duplication is reduced and innovation reaches communities far beyond where it is developed.

In a world where climate displacement, migration and humanitarian crises do not stop at national borders, and solutions cannot stop there either.

Of course, AI is not without risks. Poor-quality data can reinforce existing inequalities. Biased algorithms can exclude vulnerable populations. Weak safeguards can undermine privacy and trust.

That is why responsible governance must be built into these systems from the beginning, with transparency, human oversight and clear standards for the communities these tools are meant to serve.

Technology alone will never solve human vulnerability.

But better information and tools, shared more effectively and used earlier, can give families something they rarely have in a crisis: options — the chance to evacuate before floodwaters rise, protect livelihoods before drought destroys them and receive support before they are forced to abandon everything they know.

That is what effective multilateralism should look like in the age of AI — not simply reacting better to crises, but preventing more of them in the first place. Korea’s Global AI Hub can help make that future possible.

Amy Pope is director-general of the International Organization for Migration.