Charity Digital Skills Report 2026: what it says about AI
Four in five charities now use AI. Half have no policy for it, and small charities are furthest behind on both counts.
The Charity Digital Skills Report has surveyed the UK charity sector each year since 2017. The 2026 edition drew 807 responses, the largest in its history. Its findings on AI describe a sector where use has run well ahead of any agreement about how to use it.
Use is near-universal. Strategy is not.
79% of charities now use AI in some way. That is the headline, and it is worth pausing on, because it means the question “should we use AI?” has already been answered inside most organisations, whether or not anyone decided it.
Underneath that number, the picture is thinner. Only 4% say AI is widely used and part of their strategy. Another 34% use it in some areas but not as part of any plan. 41% are still only exploring.
Day to day, it is mostly writing and reading: 60% use it for everyday tasks such as summarising notes, 57% for documents and reports, 47% for research, and 35% for shaping funding applications.
The governance gap
51% have no AI policy at all. Only 18% have a formal one in place, with a further 29% developing a policy or an agreed way of working.
The gap by size is stark. 79% of large charities have a policy or are writing one. Among small charities, 62% have none.
It goes further than paperwork. 44% are taking no action of any kind on AI progress or AI risk. For small charities that figure is 55%, against 15% of large ones. Under a fifth have reviewed their data protection position, and only 17% have agreed which AI tools staff may use.
This is the finding that should concern anyone running a small care charity. If four in five organisations use AI, and more than half of the small ones have neither a policy nor an approved tool list, then in a great many services staff are making these decisions alone, at the point of use, with no way to check whether they got it right.
Trust is falling, not rising
35% now name a lack of trust in AI tools as a barrier, up from 15% in 2024. That has more than doubled in two years, during the same period that use climbed. People are using AI more and trusting it less.
The rest of the barrier list reads like a description of a small care charity’s week: 56% limited skills, 45% no training or support, 43% data protection and GDPR concerns, 40% doubts about accuracy.
Distrust is not spread evenly. It runs at 43% among organisations serving global majority communities and 43% among LGBTQIA+ charities — higher than the sector average, and worth weight from anyone whose service supports those communities.
What charities say they want
The report asks what would help. The answers are not about buying more software:
- 60% want training for staff and volunteers
- 57% want training for leaders and trustees
- 45% want sector guidance on responsible AI use
- 44% want guidance on developing a policy
Only 41% want AI tools built for the sector, and 36% want more money for tools. The stated need is for skills and ground rules, well ahead of technology.
What to do about it
If you are in the 51% with no policy, that is the cheapest gap to close, and it is the one the sector says it most wants help with. A policy does not have to be long. One page that names which tools are approved, what must never be typed into them, and who checks the output will put you ahead of most of the sector.
Start with our one-page AI use policy template. If staff are already using AI without one, that is not unusual — it is the sector norm — but it is worth fixing in an afternoon rather than after an incident.