Design Lab at Building Bridges: Key Insights

How can artificial intelligence improve investment decision-making and help mobilise more capital towards sustainable development?

At Building Bridges 2026, the SDG Impact Finance Initiative (SIFI) and Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF), in collaboration with ETH Zurich and Tameo Impact Fund Solutions, convened an interactive Design Lab titled Engineering Trust: Designing the AI Backbone for Impact Investing.

Building on the work of PRISM Impact Lab, participants explored three critical dimensions of AI-enabled investment infrastructure:

• Evidence: Investors need reliable, comparable data on realised risk-adjusted returns, downside protection and the effectiveness of concessional capital.
• Infrastructure: AI can help structure and analyse fragmented financial and impact data, provided robust validation, human oversight and traceability are built into the process.
• Adoption: Market trust depends on transparent methodologies, credible governance and tools designed around investors' practical needs.

The discussions highlighted that AI's potential lies not simply in processing more data, but in making investment evidence more accessible, reliable and actionable.

The findings and recommendations are presented in the new Building Bridges Design Lab Event Report, which will help inform the next phase of PRISM's development.

Help shape the next phase of PRISM

The PRISM partners are preparing an application to Innosuisse to expand PRISM's work, combining AI-enabled data infrastructure, investment research and practical tools for investors.

Financial institutions, fund managers, technology providers and other interested organisations are invited to contribute expertise and explore opportunities for collaboration, including providing letters of support for the application.

For further information, please contact Prof. Dr. Thomas Giroux, ETH Zurich, using the contact details in the report.