When storytelling meets Artificial Intelligence

October 25, 2026 by Our Reporter

For decades, development organisations have faced a difficult communication problem: how can they draw attention to a crisis without making people seem defined only by that crisis? Udemma Chukwuma writes.

According to Nigerian development storyteller and creative advocate Valentine Onyeka Ogunaka, the answer could shape not only what the public thinks, but also the future of artificial intelligence.

Speaking online at the Communications for a Better World conference, a hybrid event held in New York City, Ogunaka asked communicators, journalists, humanitarian organisations, and development institutions to think about a question that goes beyond fundraising and awareness campaigns:

“What happens when artificial intelligence learns about entire communities through narratives that focus primarily on crisis, dependency, and vulnerability?”

This question was at the heart of his presentation, which explored the growing link between development storytelling and new AI systems.

For decades, humanitarian campaigns and development communications have used powerful images and personal stories to gain support and resources. These methods have helped people pay attention to important causes, but Ogunaka says they have also helped create a limited picture of many of the people they aim to support.

“When someone is introduced first as a refugee, a beneficiary, or a displaced person, we may unintentionally reduce a complete human being to a single circumstance,” he said. “The reality is that many of these individuals are also entrepreneurs, professionals, students, parents, creators, and community builders.”

According to Ogunaka, the rise of artificial intelligence makes this issue even more important.

The reports, articles, profiles, images, and other digital content created today are increasingly becoming part of the information that machine-learning systems study and learn from. If stories repeatedly describe certain groups as helpless, poor, in crisis, or dependent on others, technology may learn these patterns and repeat them.

“People should not have to trade their dignity to be seen,” Ogunaka said. “Visibility matters, but the way we achieve it matters too.”

To address this problem, Ogunaka introduced Framing for a Cause (FFAC), a storytelling method developed over years of fieldwork and engagement with displaced people, migrants, refugees, and other vulnerable communities. He developed the method through his work with Ecrafti, the communications and social impact initiative he founded in Abuja. It encourages communicators to show people through four key ideas: Identity, Agency, Contribution, and Possibility.

Instead of defining people only by labels such as refugee, returnee, beneficiary, or internally displaced person, the method aims to show more of their lives and experiences. It encourages communicators to go beyond describing people's needs and also highlight their strength, abilities, hopes, and contributions.

“The issue is not whether stories of hardship should be told,” Ogunaka explained. “The issue is whether those stories reflect the full complexity of the people at their centre.”

Ogunaka believes communication professionals are playing an increasingly important role in discussions about ethical technology.

“Much of the discussion around AI focuses on engineers and policymakers,” he said. “But communicators are shaping the narratives that enter these systems. In many ways, the stories we publish today may influence how future technologies understand humanity.”

This method is part of a wider idea he calls Development Narratives Diplomacy. It means that storytelling is not just a way to share information. It can also influence how the public understands issues, what institutions focus on, how policies are made, and, increasingly, how technologies help society understand information.

His comments come as governments, researchers, and technology companies work through questions about fairness in AI, how people are represented, and how to develop technology responsibly. Ogunaka says one important issue that often receives too little attention is the quality of the human stories that feed today's information systems.

“It starts with how we see people,” he said. “If we can tell stories that acknowledge challenges while also recognizing dignity, capability, and potential, we create a more accurate picture of humanity for everyone, including the technologies we’re developing.”

As artificial intelligence becomes more involved in decision-making, access to information, and public life, Ogunaka believes communicators have both an opportunity and a responsibility to help build a future that includes everyone.

“Better technology begins with better human stories,” he said. “The future of ethical AI may depend not only on the quality of our algorithms, but on the quality of the narratives we leave behind.”

For Ogunaka, the question facing communicators today is no longer simply what stories people are hearing.

It is what stories machines are learning.