Last December, on the HOPE Global Forums stage in Atlanta, I announced HOPE AI, a national effort to add AI literacy to the financial literacy coaching Operation HOPE has led for more than 30 years. I did not make that announcement alone. Van Jones, CNN host and founder of Dream Corps, stood with me, along with Artis Stevens, President and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and Milton Jones, Chair of the UNCF Board of Directors.
Those three were there on purpose. Dream Corps works with communities that have been locked out of the last economy. Big Brothers Big Sisters walks beside young people every day. UNCF has spent generations putting students through college. When the conversation turns to artificial intelligence and the economy, these are the voices that tell you whether a technology is ready for the people it claims to serve.
If you have not seen the moment, I would invite you to watch it. The line I keep coming back to is the one I said near the end: “We’re not afraid, we’re inspired.”
I meant it then and I mean it now. Fear is the easy response to a technology that moves this fast. Inspiration takes more work, because it asks you to learn the tool, teach the tool, and make sure the tool reaches the single mother, the small business owner, and the first-generation student before it reaches anyone else. That is the same job we have done with money for three decades. HOPE has always believed that dignity and opportunity come from knowing how the system works and having someone in your corner while you learn it. AI is the next system, and the same rule applies.
A year later, that stage is the reason I am looking forward to December. Commitments are made at the HOPE Global Forums, and the following year, the people who made them come back and share the work they have put in. The room celebrates the effort it takes to keep moving forward, and it holds each of us to what we said we would do.
On December 2-3 in Atlanta, Capitalism, Tech, and AI in a Human-Centric World carries that conversation forward on AI and the economy, with hope, optimism, and a plan. We will gather at the Signia by Hilton Atlanta. I would like you in the room.
Register for the HOPE Global Forums 2026 here.
John Hope Bryant is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Operation HOPE and the author of Capitalism for All.