New AI assistant tool Aisha centers Black voices

Esosa Osa is the Founder and CEO of Onyx Impact, a nonprofit and research lab focused on fighting digital disinformation, protecting Black communities online, and building information equity.

As voters scroll through election claims online, Onyx Impact is offering an artificial intelligence tool that answers questions using Black sources. The nonprofit’s chat assistant, Aisha, launched in June and has nearly 100,000 users, according to founder and CEO Esosa Osa.

Users can ask everyday questions, find Black news outlets and request sources for information they encounter online. Osa said the tool addresses gaps in other AI tools.

“The inspiration there came from seeing how often Black history, Black culture, Black context was flattened or left out entirely by the tools that are starting to determine our own reality,” Osa said.

Onyx Impact works across research, media and technology. Its mission is to amplify Black voices and protect Black communities from propaganda through education and advocacy. Osa said that mission shapes how Aisha answers questions.

“When you ask Aisha something like, ‘What’s going on in the economy?’, she’s going to give you the overall answer of how the economy is doing, but she’s also going to tell you how the economy is impacting Black folks in this country without you having to ask,” Osa said.

The tool draws on Black news outlets, authors and publicly available research on Black communities from universities. Its news feeds direct users to publishers’ websites rather than providing AI-generated summaries.

Osa said the approach preserves original reporting and supports publishers.

“You’ve got to click on that article, and essentially go to that site within the app, so that that site gets the traffic, they get the revenue,” Osa said.

Osa also wants to address bias. She said the team built Aisha to respect people and the perspectives of marginalized communities and tests its responses to difficult questions.

During this election season, Osa said some of those questions can carry real consequences. Fabricated content can make polling places seem intimidating or spread false claims about elections, she said. Other messages exploit people’s genuine frustrations to convince them that participating will not make a difference.

Onyx Impact’s Propaganda Playbook calls this tactic “cynicism bombing.”

“How do you take legitimate grievances and use that as fertile ground to push narratives completely devoid of context, right?”

To evaluate questionable content on social media, Osa encouraged people to ask three questions: Can you find the source? Does the content stir emotions before offering facts? Who benefits from the message?

Users can ask Aisha about claims they encounter online and request supporting sources. Osa said the tool is not a fact-checker, but its responses can serve as a starting point for verifying information.

For now, the team is focused on making Aisha work consistently before adding features. Osa said engineers have ideas for expanding the tool but did not announce specific additions or a timeline.

“We want to make sure that we’re growing in a responsible way,” Osa said.