Request for Proposals for AI x Animals

By Kevin Xia 🔸, Max Taylor @ 2026-01-29T11:04 (+48)

TL;DR

Introduction

Over the next decade, AI will increasingly shape how we produce food, manage ecosystems, and interact with animals, presenting some of the most significant risks and opportunities the animal advocacy movement has faced. For example, if AI-enabled precision livestock farming (PLF) takes off, it could alter the daily experience of billions or even trillions of animals every year. Animal advocacy efforts could be supercharged or face new bottlenecks. New AI tools could rapidly accelerate alternative protein or animal welfare research, or AI could be used to entrench factory farming, unblock bottlenecks for scaling the farming of fishes or insects, and create new forms of exploitation we can't yet foresee.

Despite these high stakes, there is currently very little work being done at the intersection of AI and animal advocacy. To fill this gap, a group of funders is launching a targeted, experimental funding initiative. Our goal is to equip the animal advocacy movement with the skills, tools, and strategic foresight needed to navigate this new reality, helping to secure transformative benefits and avert large-scale harms before they become irreversible.

Our Approach: A Focused, Experimental Fund

We recognize that this field is nascent and that the most effective long-term interventions are still uncertain. Many funders, including ourselves, feel we are still learning.

Therefore, this RFP is not a broad call for all ideas, but rather a focused effort to make smart investments in specific projects that can build our movement’s capacity to engage with AI effectively. We are prioritizing projects that provide clear learning value, equip advocates with practical skills, and build the collaborative infrastructure we need to succeed.

This will be managed as a pooled fund, with a small team of grant managers with relevant expertise evaluating proposals to ensure an efficient and focused process.

If you want to contribute to the pooled fund, please email maxrtaylor99@gmail.com or kevintxxia@gmail.com. Further details below. Please note that Max and Kevin are working on this project in a personal capacity, and it is separate from their work at ACE and Hive. 

Priority Categories

We invite concise, impact-oriented proposals with a clear strategy for providing learning value to the broader animal advocacy movement. We are open to creative ideas in this realm, but we are most interested in projects that fall under the following categories.

I. Empowering Animal Advocates 

Projects that equip advocates, NGOs, and grassroots groups with AI-enabled tools and insights to maximize their reach, effectiveness, and agility. We believe building basic AI literacy and capacity will improve current advocacy productivity and also help ensure the movement can navigate the complexities of an AI-transformed world. Illustrative examples include:

II. Strategic Field-Building and Coordination

Field-building, infrastructure, and coordination efforts that strengthen the animal advocacy movement’s ability to harness AI and prepare for AI-driven change. We believe that these efforts can be robustly high-value across a range of scenarios. We are also open to experimental projects in key geographic hubs that are expected to unlock funding opportunities, staffing capacity, expertise, data, training, tools, or other concrete benefits. Illustrative examples include:

III. Actionable Research & Strategic Foresight 

Practical research that provides clear, actionable guidance to advocates and funders. We believe that there is a lot we still need to figure out and welcome proposals to help us do so. We are particularly interested in work that helps the movement anticipate and respond to new forms of animal exploitation, or reveal clear, impactful opportunities to engage around policy and alternative proteins. Illustrative examples include:

Funding and Logistics

Submission Instructions

Please complete the online application form by 23:59 UTC, 30 April 2026. 

Join the RFP as a contributor

We are incredibly grateful to The Navigation Fund, Coefficient Giving, and Stray Dog Institute for their contribution. We expect there are enough strong AI x animals projects within our scope that we could effectively deploy around US$500,000, and are thus open to receiving additional funding up to US$200,000. 

If you would like to make a contribution to the fund, we welcome donations above US$1,000. Please email  maxrtaylor99@gmail.com or kevintxxia@gmail.com, and we will send you more details about the RFP, the team involved, and the logistics. 100% of all contributions will go to the grantees.

Questions?

For any questions, please contact: