Artificial intelligence in humanitarian aid: A review and future research agenda

As crises, both natural and man-made, continue to escalate in frequency and complexity, the need for effective and timely humanitarian interventions has become increasingly critical. Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative tool in enhancing humanitarian aid, addressing all stages of the crisis management cycle. Despite growing interest in AI's application within the humanitarian field, the existing literature remains fragmented, with limited synthesis of its overall impact. This study adopts a systematic literature review approach to provide a comprehensive analysis of AI's utilization in humanitarian aid across the crisis cycle, as well as its role in broader humanitarian settings outside of immediate crisis contexts. Based on 60 selected studies, the findings reveal that AI applications in both the pre- and post-crisis phases can be grouped into four specific categories, and that AI's role in broader humanitarian contexts can similarly be divided into four focus areas. Specifically, the categories in the pre-crisis phase include site selection, medical services enhancement, early warning, and information flow, and the categories in the post-crisis phase include distribution and delivery, damage assessment, online and textual insights, and routing optimization. The review highlights AI's significant potential to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian efforts, offering valuable insights for organizations seeking to harness AI's transformative power. • This study provides an overview of the current state of knowledge on the AI-humanitarian aid nexus and outlines a roadmap for future research. • Two research questions guide this review: exploring how AI is applied during crises, and examining its broader use in the humanitarian context. • Understanding the AI-humanitarian link is critical considering how heavily the world relies on aid being effective every time a crisis occurs. • This is the first comprehensive synthesis to examine AI's role in humanitarian aid across multiple crisis types and phases.