LAC AI Accelerator: An AI-Enabled Region

Advancing AI adoption in Latin America and the Caribbean

1 - What is the LAC AI Acelerator?

The LAC AI Accelerator is a regional initiative that aims to foster the development and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) use cases, especially agentic AI use cases, across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries.

The initiative will identify high‑potential use cases through an open call and support proponent teams in rigorously validating them. In doing so, the accelerator equips governments with evidence to decide whether to scale AI solutions with long‑term financing or to discontinue them. Lessons from the accelerator will be shared across the ecosystem to enable replication and scaling of effective AI use cases.

The initiative envisions empowered governments in LAC to harness AI to innovate in service delivery, promote a more efficient government, design data driven policy, and, ultimately, foster an inclusive digital economy.

The LAC AI Accelerator is the first iteration of what is expected to become an annual challenge led by the World Bank. Each iteration will be built on learnings from the previous cohorts and will include an increasingly more comprehensive toolbox of support mechanisms for the use cases. 

2 - What is the value of participating in the LAC AI Accelerator?

The accelerator will deliver assistance to the proposing teams, called the Digital Service Teams, throughout the design and testing of the AI solutions.

The engagement will consist of the following:

• Institutional maturity assessment: deep-dive evaluation of the proposing organization’s AI readiness, adoption and strategic positioning. This assessment will help the organization understand its current capabilities, identify gaps and define a roadmap for scaling AI initiatives effectively and responsibly.

• Strategic advisory: expert guidance on selecting the most appropriate AI models.

• Technical mentorship: hands-on companionship throughout the lifecycle of the pilot to troubleshoot issues as they arise and to test the use case. The World Bank Group and its strategic partners will not provide hardware nor software (including computing power, data and sandbox environments), therefore, all hardware and software will have to be put in by the Digital Service Team.

• Specialized trainings to strengthen skills for AI-solutions deployment and to improve knowledge on AI fundamentals, data governance, and ethical principles to ensure safe implementation. Members of teams that participate in courses will receive a Certificate of Completion from the World Bank Group. Trainings will be tailored for policymakers and technical staff.

• Networking and knowledge sharing opportunities. During the World Bank Digital Summit, the selected teams will be able to showcase their use cases, thereby expanding the visibility of their innovations and their opportunities for collaboration. The teams will have access to other types of World Bank Group online and in-person events.

3 - What are the direct beneficiaries of the LAC AI Accelerator?

The accelerator is open to teams from public or private sector entities, civil society organizations and Academia, all throughout the LAC region, interested in using AI to improve:

• Category 1 – Digital government services (e.g., through AI agents with which citizens and businesses can interact and make transactions using natural language)

• Category 2 – Public sector efficiency (e.g., through automated processing, simplification, and case management for Back-office optimization)

• Category 3 – Policy design and delivery (e.g., through AI-assisted simulation of the potential impact of policy choices, such as subsidies, regulations or social programs, before implementation)

Applicant teams can use the Agentic State Vision Paper to guide the definition of their use cases.

Participating teams should be multi-disciplinary, with experts who understand both the technology and the specific development problem they are trying to solve.

It is recommended that proposals target one of the World Bank Group’s five priority sectors: infrastructure, agribusiness, health, manufacturing, and tourism. However, alignment with these sectors is not mandatory, and proposals from any domain that fit within the three eligible categories are welcome.

Participating teams must have the support of a public digital authority (national, state or local level) and will have to submit a commitment letter signed by the head of the relevant authority. Support may come from a consortium of public authorities within the same country or among different LAC countries; in this case, there will be more than one sponsoring organization and commitment letter.

4 - How will the Digital Service Teams  be  selected? 

All Digital Service Teams will have to send the following documents to the address lacaiaccelerator_worldbank.org@worldbank.org:

• The institutional commitment letter, that is, the letter signed by the head of the public digital authority that backs the Digital Service Team. Use the letter templates available on the right of this page.

• The use case proposal document, that is, the record that describes the use case proposal, the problem it is trying to solve and the readiness of its AI solution. It should also include considerations for AI suitability and data, and a sustainability and scalability plan. Use the document templates available on the right of this page.

• The privacy notice through which the applicant consents to share personal information about himself/herself and the Digital Service Team members with the World Bank. Use the templates available on the right of this page.

Proposals will be evaluated by the LAC AI Accelerator Governance Committee, composed of a representative from each of the partner organizations, as well as experts from the World Bank Group’s Digital & AI VP.

5 - What are the next steps for the LAC AI Accelerator?

Here is the calendar of the regional initiative:

Knowledge sharing:

• The AI use cases will be stored in the AI Use Case and Knowledge Platform, developed through a collaboration among seven Multilateral Development Banks.
• The LAC AI Accelerator will produce an Annual Report featuring key lessons learned, best practices, and policy design and pilot evaluation recommendations. The report will serve as a regional reference and will be disseminated to policy makers and the international development community.
• Selected AI use cases will be showcased in regional and global forums, reinforcing the potential of AI to drive inclusive and sustainable development in LAC.

For any additional questions, interested parties can contact the organizing team by email at  lacaiaccelerator_worldbank.org@worldbank.org.

6 – Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: What is the expected maturity level of the submitted use cases?

The LAC AI Accelerator is open to AI use cases at a wide range of maturity levels, from early-stage technology concepts to fully deployed systems operating under monitored conditions. What matters most is that the Digital Service Team provides a comprehensive description of the proposed solution and a candid assessment of organizational readiness, covering dimensions such as connectivity, compute capacity, digital public infrastructure, data availability, skills, and risk management. The Accelerator's support is calibrated to meet teams where they are.

Q2: The initiative emphasizes agentic AI, but the eligibility categories are broadly defined. Are purely non-agentic AI solutions eligible, or is there a minimum threshold of “agenticity” that proposals must meet?

The Accelerator prioritizes solving real development challenges with the most appropriate technology. While the initiative has a particular focus on agentic AI use cases, evaluation will place greater weight on the quality and clarity of the problem statement, the proposed solution, and the organization’s readiness (across policy, skills, infrastructure, and data) than on whether the solution is strictly agentic.

Q3: What specific criteria does the LAC AI Accelerator Governance Committee use to evaluate and rank proposals?

Proposals are assessed by the Governance Committee against five weighted criteria:

• Impact & Relevance: Does the solution address a significant development challenge and have the potential to reach a meaningful number of people?
• Data & AI Fit: Is AI, and specifically agentic AI, the right approach for this problem? Does the team demonstrate readiness in terms of policy, infrastructure, data, and skills?
• Feasibility & Team: Does the proposal present a realistic plan that a multidisciplinary team can execute within a six-month agile cycle?
• Safety & Responsibility: Does the solution protect data privacy, mitigate bias, and follow a “do no harm” approach?
• Sustainability & Scale: Is the solution designed to outlast the pilot phase and be replicable in other contexts or countries?

Q4: What type of public digital authority must back the AI use case?

Any public authority with competencies in digital matters is eligible to provide institutional backing, regardless of whether it operates at the municipal, state, or national level. The key requirement is that the authority issues a formal Institutional Commitment Letter, signed by its head, confirming political support for the use case and nominating a focal point to engage with the Accelerator throughout the process.

7 – Selected proposals

The LAC AI Accelerator supports 18 AI solutions across 12 countries in the region: