Scaling Hope with AI

Client

The client is a global humanitarian organization dedicated to supporting over 100 million displaced individuals across more than 135 countries. Its operations cover crisis response, refugee services, and policy coordination across key functions such as HR, finance, and innovation. As one of the most vital institutions in the global humanitarian ecosystem, the organization plays a crucial role in delivering timely aid and support to those in need.

Market Trends in Humanitarian Aid

Humanitarian organizations are under growing pressure to operate with speed, transparency, and efficiency amid rising global crises and complex international operations. As their services expand across multiple regions and functions like HR, finance, and travel, managing operations at scale becomes increasingly difficult. Many organizations still rely on manual processes and siloed systems, creating inefficiencies and slowing decision-making.

The shift towards AI-driven automation offers an opportunity to streamline workflows and improve responsiveness. However, successfully deploying these solutions requires overcoming challenges such as handling vast multilingual data, ensuring secure role-based access, and delivering user-friendly experiences for large, diverse teams.

Business Challenges

For the client, these industry pressures were compounded by two key operational hurdles that limited scalability and modernization efforts:

• Helpdesk Inefficiency and Support Gaps: A surge in complex queries across HR, Finance, Travel, and beneficiary services demanded extensive manual handling. This slowed response times and created friction for both staff and beneficiaries, affecting overall service quality.
• Complex Data and Limited AI Readiness: Vast volumes of multilingual policy documents and UN-specific terminology created high reliance on subject matter experts (SMEs). This complexity hindered the deployment of AI-driven solutions. Additionally, introducing automation for over 20,000 staff required a robust, secure, and intuitive system architecture.

Key objectives

• Automate responses to refugee and beneficiary queries
• Reduce ticket volumes and helpdesk workload
• Enable semantic search and summarization of policy content across SharePoint and Google Drive
• Ensure secure, scalable, role-based access with real-time indexing
• Support experimentation and rollout of 50+ generative AI use cases

LTM Solution

LTM partnered with the client to build a scalable Generative AI platform using Microsoft Azure OpenAI services. The aim was to simplify complex processes, reduce manual provide secure, seamless access to critical organizational information.

Key Solution Elements Included:

• Helpdesk Transformation with Azure GPT

A ChatGPT-like interface was deployed to transform helpdesk operations, enabling semantic search, summarization, and policy comparisons across HR, Finance, and Travel. This reduced response times and improved experiences for staff and beneficiaries.

• Enterprise Data Integration and Governance

To manage vast, multilingual data, SharePoint and Google Drive content were integrated via Graph APIs and auto-indexed in real time, ensuring up-to-date information with strict, document-level access controls.

• Scalable Infrastructure and Monitoring

The platform supported up to 100 concurrent users and 40 requests per second, with Infrastructure-as-Code automating provisioning. Performance and ROI were tracked through Power BI dashboards, while token usage and rate limits were closely monitored.

• Model Evaluation and Governance

Accuracy was evaluated using RAGAS, ROUGE, BLEU, and BERT F1 scores, with a secondary GPT instance acting as a judge. Secure access was enforced through role-based controls and single sign-on via Azure EntraID.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration and Innovation

Starting with a Microsoft-funded proof of concept, the initiative scaled to three Statements of Work covering AI-driven automation. A pilot integration with Workday also enabled personalized HR chatbot support, setting the stage for broader AI adoption across the enterprise.

Business Benefits

• Increased beneficiary services by 25%, improving responsiveness to refugee and beneficiary needs.

• Achieved a 45% reduction in helpdesk ticket volume through automation, streamlining support operations across HR and finance

• Improved operational productivity by 30%, freeing staff to focus on strategic tasks and faster issue resolution.

• Enabled cross-functional adoption across HR, finance, and innovation teams.

• AI-driven tools and insights were rolled out globally to empower over 20,000 staff.

• Recognized as a finalist in major industry awards for AI-driven social impact and innovation.

Conclusion

This generative AI transformation, delivered in partnership with LTM, marks a pivotal step in modernizing humanitarian operations. By embedding AI into core support functions, the client has improved efficiency, minimized manual effort, and enhanced its ability to respond swiftly and accurately in times of crisis.

The initiative demonstrates how AI can be deployed responsibly and securely in high-stakes environments, with a focus on precision, compliance, and domain-specific needs. Its modular, secure architecture offers a replicable model for other UN agencies and humanitarian organizations aiming to scale AI for meaningful impact.

With 50+ additional use cases identified and a global rollout in motion, the client is now equipped to respond faster, support its workforce better, and deliver humanitarian aid more effectively and sustainably.