STORY: AI and Human Creativity for Enabling More Effective Communications

Experimental evidence shows that entertainment and media can influence outcomes ranging from health-seeking behaviors to gender norms and healthier masculinities. Yet despite governments spending worldwide around $25 billion annually on communications, their design often fails to leverage the wealth of data and evidence available. AI can enhance human creativity and judgment by bringing together evidence and insights on what people believe, whom they trust, and the media they consume—helping policymakers and creatives design stories and communications that can shift attitudes, behaviors, and social norms. Using fatherhood and men’s engagement in children’s early years as an illustrative case, this session will showcase STORY, a multi-engine AI platform that integrates media analysis, social listening, impact evaluations, and behavioral diagnostics to enable more effective, human-led communication.

Speakers: 

• Sharath Guntuku, Associate Professor, Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania
• Renos Vakis, Lead Economist, Development Impact Department, World Bank Group
• José Campi Portaluppi, Director of Communications and Advocacy, Equimundo

Moderator: Victor Orozco-Olvera, Program Lead, World Bank Group – Narrating Behavior Change

In Partnership with World Bank Group