A farmer in rural India photographs a dying plant and wants to look it up. She does not speak English, and today’s AI barely speaks hers. A nonprofit called Current AI thinks that is a problem worth fixing.
Its goal is grand: a “public option” for AI, open and free to anyone, much like the early web. “If it’s going to change every aspect of everyone’s life, there has to be a public alternative,” chief executive Ayah Bdeir told TechCrunch. “Like the World Wide Web, available to anyone, for free.”
Who is behind it
Current AI launched at France’s AI Action Summit in early 2025. The French government seeded it with €100m, joined by the Ford and MacArthur foundations, DeepMind and Salesforce. Total commitments now top $400m, and the group says it is aiming to mobilise $2.5bn over five years.
Crucially, the backers are not chasing a return. “They’re not investors, they’re funders,” Bdeir said. She ran Mozilla’s AI strategy before joining, and earlier founded the education-hardware firm littleBits.
