The AI for Humanity Award recognizes the positive impacts of artificial intelligence to protect, enhance, and improve human life in meaningful ways with long-lived effects. The award is given annually at the conference for the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and is accompanied by a prize of $25,000 plus travel expenses to the conference. The award was given for the first time in 2021. Please see AI for Humanity Award for more information.
The award is administered by AAAI, with support from the European Artificial Intelligence Association (EurAI). Financial support for the award is provided by Squirrel AI.
2025 Award Nominations Deadline
October 3, 2025 End of Day, Anywhere on Earth (AoE), UTC -12 hrs.
Nominations
Candidates may be individuals, groups, or organizations that are directly connected with the main contribution stated in the nomination. Qualifications or technical knowledge in artificial intelligence are not requirements for nominations. The emphasis is on the significance and impact of the work.
The nominator will submit a nomination packet consisting of:
- Contact information for the nominator
- Contact information for the candidate(s)
- Nomination summary (no more than 25 words) that would properly reflect the major reason(s) for the candidate(s) to be considered for the award
- Nomination statement (no more than 1,000 words) submitted by the nominator that describes the merits of the candidate(s) for receiving the award
- Supporting documents (e.g., newspaper articles, CVs, appreciation letters) should be included if appropriate, up to and not to exceed 20 pages.
- At least 3 and no more than 8 letters from endorsers of the nomination, each explaining the reasons for the nomination from a different perspective and providing sufficient background about the qualifications of the endorser and their familiarity with the candidate(s)
Please submit your nomination via the online nomination form. All uploads in the form should be in PDF format. Inquiries may be directed to the AAAI Executive Director at aaai-exec-director@aaai.org.
Nominations should describe the contributions in terms that will be understandable to a non-technical audience.
Representative examples of the types of contributions that this award aims to recognize include: implementations of artificial intelligence techniques that improve how critical resources or infrastructure are managed; applications of artificial intelligence to support disadvantaged or marginalized populations; learning tools that significantly improve access and quality of education; and intelligent systems that improve the quality of life for their users.
Nomination packets that include nominators or endorsers that are prohibited by the conflict of interest rules for the award will not be considered.
Nomination packets submitted after the deadline of October 3, 2025 will not be considered.
Nominations that are not successful can be resubmitted the following year for consideration, but only for 3 consecutive years. No details on the reasons for a decision will be returned to any nominators. No details on the nomination or selection process will be revealed to any candidates.
Conflict of Interest Policies
- Nominators and endorsers for a candidate cannot be: the AAAI President, Past President, Treasurer, and Executive Director; employees of Squirrel AI; or members of the award committee. If such cases occur, the nomination will be discarded for that year.
- Members of the award committee are not eligible for the award during their term of committee service. If a nomination package is received for a committee member, the nomination will not be considered that year.
- Members of the award committee should not be directly involved in commenting or pre-reviewing nominations prior to their submission. If a committee member is approached with a specific question concerning a potential candidate, they should direct the question to the AAAI Executive Director or the AAAI President.
- Award committee members will not provide any guidance or feedback to potential or unsuccessful candidates.
- Members of the award committee will maintain complete confidentiality about the internal discussions of the committee, the nomination packages, and any decisions reached about candidates.
- The committee chair should notify the AAAI Executive Director immediately of any potential conflict with a nomination, and in such cases the nominator will be asked to withdraw and defer the nomination until the chair is no longer involved with the award.
- Upon receipt of the nomination packages, members of the award committee will disclose to the committee chair immediately any relationships/affiliations that might be perceived as a source of potential bias or conflict of interest before any candidates are discussed. This includes candidates who were thesis advisors/advisees or are in the same institution or in an institution where the committee member has worked within the past 4 years, or who have had close personal or working relationships within the past 4 years, or who held a close working relationship for a period of time.
- In consultation with the AAAI Executive Director, the committee chair will establish appropriate procedures to handle the potential biases and conflicts of interest disclosed. The normal practice is for conflicted committee members to recuse themselves from discussions related to the corresponding nominations. In this sense, recusal means that the committee member will refrain from any commentary/input before or during the decision-making process and will be absent during committee discussions of the nomination.
Contact
For any questions or further information, please contact the AAAI Executive Director at aaai-exec-director@aaai.org.