Audere

📢 Only one week to go until International AIDS Society 2026!

This year’s conference will feature more AI content than any previous International AIDS Conference, reflecting how rapidly AI is moving from no longer being a side conversation, but a fundamental part of how the sector is thinking about the future of HIV prevention and care.

To help delegates navigate the AI conversation throughout the week, we have developed the AI and HIV Session Roadmap with AVAC, highlighting key sessions and presentations.

📜 🔗 Take a look here:
https://lnkd.in/dvU8scrJ

🫱🏽‍🫲🏽 If you’re attending, we would love to connect. Reach out to Dino Rech, Sarah Morris and Natalie Maricich, who will be contributing to conversations shaping the global HIV response - sharing insights and learnings from real-world use cases, across panel discussions and poster sessions.

Improved health outcomes are driven not only by access to information, but by timely awareness, trust, and behaviour change.

Together with our network of partners, we’re exploring how AI can be optimised within health systems to support this outcome. Our self-care work is particularly focused on this space — using implementation science and real-world learning to strengthen social and behaviour change at scale.

Join our CEO, Dr Dino Rech, at tomorrow’s AI plenary at the 2026 Social and Behavior Change Communication Summit 👇🏼

🗓️ 25 June

⌚ 09h30 - 10h45 ( 16h30) local time

🔗 https://sbccsummit.org/en/

1,000,000 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬. 100,000 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐠 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞.

Two years ago, we asked a simple question: could a conversational AI earn the trust of people navigating some of their most personal health decisions?

The answer is yes. And today, we have 1 million messages to prove it.

Across our AI companions Self-Cav, Coach Mpilo, and VimbAI, people are not just showing up. They are staying, returning, and going deeper:

👉🏽 100,000 meaningful conversations (defined as 2+ messages from the user, not just a single response)

👉🏽 58% of users meaningfully engaged with their AI companion

👉🏽 Nearly 30% came back for a second conversation or more, returning for follow-up advice, new questions, and ongoing support

👉🏽 Nearly 10% showed interest in PreP, including LEN - connecting to clinicians to discuss and link to services

👉🏽 Nearly 32,000 users engaging in Zulu, their own language, with slang support built in

This is not accidental. Trust like this is designed. It is built through community-led development, rigorous validation, and an uncompromising focus on safety, privacy, and cultural relevance.

These AI companions are creating safe, private entry points into healthcare across Southern Africa. People are making more informed decisions earlier. They are asking about prevention, testing, and treatment in spaces where they feel no judgement. And the word is spreading: nurses and community health workers across districts are requesting access because they are seeing the difference it makes.

1 million messages is a milestone. What it represents is something bigger: a health system beginning to lean in and meet people where they are 🫶🏽

To our partners, funders, and the extraordinary teams on the ground, including the National Department of Health South Africa, Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Care, Shout-It-Now, Population Services International, Wits Health Consortium, Higher Health SA, CHAPS - Centre for HIV/AIDS Prevention Studies, and The Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research Zimbabwe (CeSHHAR Zimbabwe): thank you for trusting us to reimagine how people access care. This does not happen without your commitment to putting people first 🙏🏽

We are just getting started 🙌🏽

💸 There’s a growing narrative that building GenAI-powered solutions is now “cheap.” And technically, that’s true. But here’s the catch, while models are cost effective, building healthcare solutions that have real-world impact is not.

Once you move beyond proof-of-concept and into scaled deployment, especially in healthcare, the true costs emerge. Not in base conversations, but in engagement, safety, monitoring, and continuity of care. In other words: in the things that make systems trustworthy.

📜 In this blog article, our COO, Paul Isabelli, shares what our multi-year journey building AI for public health has taught us about where GenAI costs really sit, and why cutting the wrong corners can quietly undermine outcomes.

🔗 Have a read here:

GenAI Is Becoming More Cost-Effective. That’s Not the Hard Part. — Audere | Equitable Care Worldwide by Paul Isabelli | Audere Team There’s a growing narrative that building GenAI-powered solutions is now “cheap.” And technically, that’s true. But here’s the catch, while models are cost effective, building healthcare solutions that have real-world impact is not. Once you move beyond

🌐In 2026, equitable AI will be defined by how well it helps health systems do more with less. As donor funding landscapes continue to shift, the conversation is moving from what’s possible to what’s practical, affordable, and scalable – and success will be measured by how AI solutions respect dignity, protect privacy and solve real problems that people face.

The reflections below are shaped by our work alongside frontline health workers, partners, and communities across malaria, HIV, TB, self-care, and health system strengthening. In a year marked by even tighter resources and higher expectations, these considerations guide not just how we build AI, but how responsibly it shows up in public health systems.

Here’s what’s guiding how we think about AI in 2026 👇🏽

ASTMH Annual Meeting attendees: This year's Alan J. Magill Malaria Eradication Symposium is Nov 10 at 10:45a: Malaria Delenda Est- How Innovation Is Advancing the Fight towards Malaria Eradication. Learn more: https://tinyurl.com/yfh74jp6

💡 Heading to Deep Learning Indaba? Our Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Stanslaus Mwongela, will be in Kigali, Rwanda from 17–21 August to attend the continent’s premier gathering of AI and machine learning minds.

He’s looking forward to connecting with fellow innovators and sharing how Audere’s AI-powered tools are helping to strengthen African AI and make healthcare more equitable and accessible.

🫱🏽‍🫲🏽 If you’re attending, be sure to say hi!

🔗 https://lnkd.in/drsmJBmv