For Simon Allen, founder of Level.ai, an artificial intelligence company, the journey into AI did not begin with code or corporate ambition. It began with exhaustion of frontline workers in charities, the NHS, and local government, stretched thin by bureaucracy while trying to serve people who needed them most.
As a former CEO of Age UK in Bath and North East Somerset, a senior leader across health and social care, and a registered social worker, Allen spent years watching committed professionals lose precious time to paperwork, reporting requirements, and administrative systems designed for a world that no longer exists.
“Brilliant people were drowning in admin while the work that actually mattered got squeezed into the gaps,” Allen tells Techparley in an interview. “The systems weren’t broken. They were just designed for organisations with more money, more staff, and more time — and that world isn’t coming back.”
That gap between what technology could do and what mission-driven organisations were actually able to access ultimately led to the founding of Level.ai, an “AI for good” company focused on charities, social enterprises, B Corps, and ethical businesses.
The AI Divide Facing Mission-Driven Organisations
While artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping corporate operations, Allen argues that charities and social impact organisations face a growing risk of being left behind, not due to lack of intent, but lack of capacity.
“There’s a resource gap and a knowledge gap, and they reinforce each other,” he says. “Large corporates have innovation teams, R&D budgets, and room to experiment. A local charity or housing association is already asking staff to do three jobs at once.”
The consequences of this divide, Allen warns, will soon become structural. Organisations that adopt AI early will operate at significantly higher efficiency, producing stronger funding bids, faster responses, and clearer evidence of impact. Those that do not may appear less credible, even if their work on the ground is just as effective.
“In three years, funders and commissioners will expect AI-enabled efficiency as the baseline,” he says. “The tragedy is that the organisations most in need of these gains are the least equipped to adopt the tools that could help them.”
Level.ai’s mission, he explains, is to close that gap, not with “AI-lite” solutions, but by bringing enterprise-grade thinking to social impact contexts.
Why ‘AI Should Empower, Not Replace’ Is More Than a Slogan
Allen is clear that artificial intelligence has limits and that crossing them risks hollowing out the very purpose of social impact work.
“The line is human judgement. Full stop,” he says.
AI, he argues, can draft reports, summarise case files, flag anomalies, and automate workflows. But decisions rooted in empathy, moral reasoning, and lived relationships must remain human.
He points to examples where the balance works well: a nursing home using AI to identify medication patterns that warrant investigation, while leaving clinical judgement firmly in the hands of nurses. Where it fails, he says, is when organisations treat AI as a shortcut to removing people rather than supporting them.
“The human touch in social impact isn’t a nice-to-have,” Allen says. “If you automate that away, you’ve saved money and lost the mission.”
His rule of thumb is simple: tasks that require empathy, context, or moral judgement stay human. Everything else is fair game for automation.
Challenging the Social Sector’s Biggest AI Misconceptions
From his work with organisations such as Age UK, the NHS, and local authorities, Allen identifies three persistent fears holding the sector back.
The first is job loss. The second is the belief that organisations are “not ready” for AI adoption. According to Allen, this myth assumes that digital transformation requires complex strategies and specialist teams.
“You don’t need a grand plan,” he says. “You need one problem worth solving, and the courage to start small.”
The third and most dangerous misconception, however, is the idea that AI is neutral.
“It’s not,” Allen argues. “AI reflects the values embedded in how it’s designed and deployed. If you don’t think carefully about whose values are shaping your tools, you’ll import assumptions that don’t fit your mission.”
This belief underpins Level.ai’s emphasis on what Allen calls values-based AI, technology shaped deliberately by the ethical commitments of the organisations using it.
The Trends That Will Shape AI in the Social Sector
Looking ahead, Allen sees three developments that will define AI adoption over the next three to five years.
The first is the rise of AI agents, systems that do tasks rather than simply answer questions. For resource-constrained organisations, this shift from assistance to execution could be transformative.
The second is democratised access. As AI costs fall, tools once reserved for enterprises are becoming accessible to small charities. The divide, Allen believes, is no longer inevitable.
The third is regulation. With frameworks such as the EU AI Act emerging, organisations working with vulnerable populations will increasingly need to demonstrate ethical and accountable AI use.
“Those who build ethics in now will be far better positioned when compliance becomes mandatory,” he says.
Can AI Narrow, Rather Than Widen, Inequality?
Despite the promise, Allen admits the risk of AI deepening inequality keeps him awake at night.
“Every technology wave has followed the same pattern,” he says. “Early adopters pull ahead, and the gap becomes self-reinforcing.”
Level.ai’s approach is to resist treating AI as a competitive advantage and instead frame it as shared infrastructure for social good. That means pricing for impact, not extraction, and prioritising knowledge transfer alongside tools.
“One consultancy can’t close a systemic gap,” Allen concedes. “But we can prove a different model works — and advocate for real investment in digital capability for the social sector.”
A Future Where AI Is Ambient, Not Exceptional
Looking ten years ahead, Allen believes AI will become ambient, embedded into organisational life rather than treated as a standalone initiative.
“The question won’t be ‘are you using AI?’” he says. “It will be ‘how thoughtfully are you using it?’”
For mission-driven organisations, success will depend on whether AI is adopted as an extension of values, not a replacement for them. Those that resist entirely or adopt uncritically, Allen warns, risk irrelevance.
As for Level.ai, its ambition is modest but deliberate.
“We’re not trying to be the biggest AI consultancy,” Allen says. “We want to be the one mission-driven organisations trust — because we understand what they’re actually trying to do, and we build for that.”
In a world racing towards automation, tech experts say Level.ai’s bet is that the future of AI, at least in social impact, will be defined not by machines, but by the humans they are designed to serve.
Talking Points
It is significant that Simon Allen founded Level.ai from firsthand experience in health, social care, and the third sector, rather than from a purely technical background. This grounding shapes how the company approaches AI adoption for mission-driven organisations.
Level.ai’s focus on using AI to reduce administrative burden, rather than replacing frontline roles directly addresses one of the biggest pain points charities and social enterprises face: staff burnout caused by compliance, reporting, and operational overload.
This positioning sets Level.ai apart from many AI startups that prioritise speed and scale over context, particularly in sectors where empathy, judgement, and trust are central to service delivery.
At Techparley, we see Allen’s emphasis on “AI that empowers, not replaces” as a pragmatic response to growing fears around job losses in the social sector, offering a model that balances efficiency with human-centred values.
As AI becomes an expected operational baseline, Level.ai has an opportunity to position itself as a trusted bridge between complex AI capabilities and the practical realities of charities and ethical businesses. If executed well, Allen’s vision could help ensure that the AI revolution does not bypass the organisations doing the most community-level work.
——————-
Bookmark Techparley.com for the most insightful technology news from the African continent.
Follow us on Twitter @Techparleynews, on Facebook at Techparley Africa, on LinkedIn at Techparley Africa, or on Instagram at Techparleynews.
