Trend 3

Nonprofits outpace the private sector in using AI in CPaaS

Background

Given the stark reality that nonprofits often operate with limited resources, AI is emerging as a critical tool to enhance operational efficiency and enable greater innovation. Today’s AI tools provide a crucial advantage by automating processes, optimizing resource allocation, and facilitating better communication with their communities.

While use cases differ across healthcare, education, classic nonprofits, and the public sector, a common trend is the widespread use of AI within Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS).

90% of nonprofits are leveraging AI for one or more use cases.

Brands say they rely on third-party data

B2C vs Nonprofits: Percent adoption of AI within CPaaS

Nonprofits lead the way in using AI tools in CPaaS

Our research shows that 90% of organizations surveyed in the nonprofit, education, and healthcare sectors are leveraging AI for one or more engagement and marketing use cases.

Nonprofits are leveraging AI faster than the private sector, with 58% of nonprofits using AI with their CPaaS, compared to 47% of B2C businesses in the private sector. Further, 68% of nonprofits are using AI to analyze end user data to understand their needs and pain points, compared to 64% of B2C businesses. 

 

AI is helping nonprofit organizations across sectors achieve more ROI from digital engagement

Nonprofit Healthcare Sector

In the healthcare sector, where patient satisfaction has a large impact on revenue, nonprofits are primarily leaning on AI to accelerate patient response times and improve patient satisfaction scores. 93% of healthcare organizations say AI will improve patient engagement and 59% of patients agree.

Top three current AI use cases for healthcare

Top three AI benefits reported by healthcare

Twilio CustomerAI Predictions helps identify likely no-show patients, triggering automation targeted to those patients with a personalized series of reminder messages. 

Nonprofit Education Sector

The education sector uses AI to connect with students, as so many of them are from younger generations that are more apt to using messaging platforms. 

Education institutions lead all nonprofit sectors in the use of AI within their CPaaS solutions. 67% said they do so, while only 51% of Healthcare orgs, 40% of Public Sector, and 46% of traditional nonprofits are following suit.  

 

Top three current AI use cases for education institutions

Top three AI benefits reported by education institutions

Public Sector

Majority of public sector organizations are already using AI to ensure cross-channel consistency, transcribe constituent support interactions, enable a single comprehensive view of constituents, and/or ensure data security and compliance.

Over half of public sector organizations that use AI for consituent engagement experience higher constituent satisfaction, better decision making, and faster response times. 

Despite these benefits, the public sector's top concerns of AI implementation are data privacy/security, the lack of technical expertise and complicance. 

Top three current AI use cases by public sector

Top three AI benefits reported by public sector

Top concerns about implementing AI across all nonprofits

AI can improve connection, but concerns still linger

Despite peoples’ fears of AI replacing personal connections with unfeeling algorithms, most nonprofits are using it to better understand the needs of their end users.

Nevertheless, there are still concerns nonprofits have when it comes to AI. Several high-profile news publications have discussed the risks of AI for nonprofits, especially concerning increased risk of bias, in the past two years. The data suggests bias is a concern but not the top concern among all nonprofits. 

Actionable insights

While each nonprofit sector has specialized use cases and priorities, the common denominator is that leader organizations are using AI in many ways. We listed 10 possible systems and platforms that they are currently using AI within the following tools and technologies:

Percentage of Digital Leaders that use AI within:

  1. Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) - 68%
  2. Contact Center solution - 59%
  3. Survey platform - 49%
  4. Customer analytics- 58%
  5. Marketing Automation Platform - 56%
  6. Customer Data Platform (CDP) - 50%
  7. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - 52%
  8. Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) - 46%
  9. Database Management System (DBMS)- 53%
  10. Data Management Platform (DMP) - 50%

As with B2C businesses, nonprofits often look to AI to improve operational efficiency or scale their ability to reach new end users without added costs. The rising demand for nonprofit services is forcing organizations to “do more with less,” and AI has the potential to ease this strain by accelerating program personalization, automating tasks currently done by staff members, and delivering predictions that fuel better decision-making.

Our research shows that 57% of nonprofits are using AI for transcriptions, call notes, and summarizing next steps. And 55% are using it for the more external-facing purpose of streamlining their ability to answer end user questions and resolve issues.

Explore the data

Sector-specific insights for nonprofits, public sector, and 501(c)(3) healthcare and education

Percent of this sector with AI enabled within their CPaaS

Percent of this sector that believe AI will improve end user engagement

Percent agree AI boosted revenue or fundraising in the past 12 months

Classic nonprofits' preparedness to leverage AI compared to peers

Resource spotlight

Scale your impact with AI-powered engagement

With the right toolkit, nonprofit organizations across all segments are finding success by using AI to strengthen their engagement with end users. In this whitepaper, you’ll learn more about how Twilio’s AI-powered engagement resources create more positive interactions and pave the way for scalable outcomes.

 

Highlights include:

AI integration strategies that can help you enhance your organization's engagement strategies

Practical case studies that demonstrate the impact of AI-powered communication solutions

 

Details of how Twilio's commitment to responsible AI use ensures data privacy and security

 

Read the full story

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