VERA, powered by Cloudera AI Studios, automates research and analysis workflows, enabling faster, more localized humanitarian insights in resource-constrained environments
Cloudera, the only company bringing AI to data anywhere, today announced the next phase of its partnership with global humanitarian and development organization Mercy Corps by unveiling Verified Evidence & Research Assistant (VERA), an agentic AI solution designed to transform how humanitarian teams gather information, analyze crises, and deliver timely insights to communities in need.
Building on nearly two and a half years of collaboration, VERA represents the evolution of a partnership that began with exploring how enterprise AI could support humanitarian operations and has now matured into a production-ready deployment of agentic AI workflows. VERA is powered by Cloudera AI Studios, built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), using Anthropic’s Claude models, to deliver secure, scalable AI capabilities that aim to help Mercy Corps rapidly transform vast amounts of humanitarian data into actionable insights. Claude was able to take the system prompts from the agents and ground them in humanitarian themes, helping to enable the agents to work responsibly and effectively. VERA automates research, aggregates information across diverse and disparate sources, and generates localized, crisis-specific analysis that helps humanitarian teams make faster, more informed decisions.
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Unlike generic AI applications, VERA was co-developed through an extensive business analysis process led by Cloudera’s Professional Services & Training team and Mercy Corps subject matter experts. Deep engagement with the user community throughout development helped to ensure that the solution reflected the realities of humanitarian fieldwork and produced context-aware, operationally relevant outputs.
Recent applications of VERA include agricultural and food security analysis in Sudan, election security reporting in Colombia, and support for disease outbreak monitoring and crisis reporting in Central and East Africa.
The solution is already delivering measurable results:
- Up to 90% time savings in producing security reports for Mercy Corps teams in Colombia
- A reduction in secondary research and desk analysis time for Sudan-focused reporting, from five or six days down to two or three
- Estimated cost savings of roughly $2,000 per Colombia security report and $1,500 per Sudan analysis report
- Expanded reporting capacity that enables more advanced and timely analysis that would be impossible for Mercy Corps to perform under current constraints
“Humanitarian organizations are being asked to do more with less while responding to increasingly complex global crises,” said Jim Bisordi, Cloudera’s SVP of Professional Services. “With VERA, we are demonstrating how agentic AI can move beyond experimentation to deliver measurable, real-world impact. This work with Mercy Corps shows what is possible when advanced AI capabilities are paired with deep domain expertise and a shared commitment to improving outcomes for vulnerable communities. As the leader of Professional Services & Training, it’s critical that we bring our outcome-focused delivery methodology to every engagement, ensuring we are not just implementing technology, but helping organizations achieve meaningful, measurable business and mission outcomes.”
“We see VERA as an important future tool for conducting research and secondary data reviews,” said Josh DeWald, Mercy Corps VP, Technical Support, Evidence and Program Quality. “Tasks that once required extensive manual effort can now be completed in a fraction of the time, while our teams focus on interpreting and validating outputs. In Sudan, for example, getting food security analysis into our teams’ hands sooner contributes to an improved response for communities facing food insecurity.”
The project also highlights Cloudera’s broader commitment to social impact through technology. Rather than serving solely as a sponsor, Cloudera has acted as an active implementation partner, providing AI expertise, technical resources, and ongoing collaboration to help Mercy Corps scale innovative approaches to humanitarian response.
As Mercy Corps continues integrating VERA into its research and reporting workflows, the organizations expect additional gains in efficiency, reporting quality, and access to critical information for decision-makers operating in some of the world’s most challenging environments.
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