When extreme weather hits, access to timely and relevant advice can make a real difference to health, livelihoods, and preparedness. GenAI chatbots offer a new way to deliver that kind of guidance, at scale. But their value depends entirely on whether communities adopt and use them.

Through Klarna's AI for Climate Resilience Program, two organisations are working through what that actually takes.

In our first piece, we looked at how local organisations are applying AI for climate resilience. The question we kept returning to was: what actually determines whether these tools create impact? The answer wasn't the technology itself.

From information to action

Behind every simple chatbot interface is a much deeper set of choices — technical and strategic — that determine whether the tool is actually useful. GenAI chatbots are well established in business: customer support, automation, decision assistance. Their application in climate resilience follows a similar logic, delivering up-to-date, practical advice to people who need it, via SMS, WhatsApp, or audio, online or offline.

But the bar for usefulness is higher here. A basic chatbot answers questions. What communities on the climate frontline need is something closer to a dialogue: guidance that is context-specific, rooted in local needs, and builds the confidence to act.

The Sakawarga Foundation in Indonesia is building exactly this. With support from the program, they are developing a GenAI chatbot designed to support thousands of villages with tailored disaster risk planning. They call it a '24/7 AI Resilience Coach' — and the framing is intentional. The tool is built to be collaborative and adaptive, not just a question-and-answer service.

Reaching that standard means making a series of interconnected choices:

• What data? What information do communities actually need, and where does it come from?

• What guidance? How is that data turned into advice that is safe, clear, and relevant?

• What channel? Which platforms make practical sense — WhatsApp, SMS, voice — and does it work offline?

• What feedback? How are real-world outcomes captured, and how does that improve the tool over time?

Each decision shapes whether the tool is actually useful in practice.

Why trust determines adoption

A well-built tool is not enough. Communities adopt tools they trust, and trust is built through context, consistency, and human connection, not technical performance alone.

When advice is wrong, irrelevant, or feels disconnected from local realities, it is ignored quickly. When it arrives through a familiar channel and reflects how people actually live and work, it becomes part of how decisions get made. The most effective AI tools for climate resilience combine AI with human expertise rather than replacing one with the other.

This is the central finding from the work of SEWA and IFPRI in India, also part of the program. Their project uses a GenAI chatbot to deliver weather and livelihood guidance to women workers — many self-employed or working outside the formal economy — via WhatsApp, in local languages, through local volunteers that communities already rely on. The AI provides scale and speed. The people who deliver it provide credibility.

Building for real-world adoption

Developing genuinely useful GenAI chatbots for climate resilience requires more than technical capability. It requires deep contextual knowledge, ongoing feedback from communities, and tools that are designed for and with the people who use them.

Ultimately, AI for climate resilience should be judged not by the sophistication of its algorithms, but by whether it helps people make better decisions in the face of climate risk.

The program is designed to support this kind of work, helping teams move from prototypes to tools that create measurable change in how communities prepare for, adapt to, and recover from climate shocks.

AI creates value when people use it. And people use it when they trust it.

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The AI for Climate Resilience Program is a global initiative by Klarna to accelerate the use of AI in tackling the local effects of climate change — identifying and supporting innovators developing practical AI solutions for communities most exposed to climate risks, turning pilot ideas into scalable tools for adaptation and resilience. 

Learn more at milkywire.com/ai-for-climate-resilience-program