Kindsight puts AI to work for fundraisers, launching its new agents and expanding Kindsight Intelligence at KindCon 2026

New research shapes Kindsight's approach to building AI anchored by human oversight.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Sept. 2, 2026 /CNW/ -- Kindsight, the leader in enterprise fundraising and donor intelligence software, today announced the general availability of its Trip Planning Agent and the expansion of Kindsight Intelligence (KI), its proprietary AI suite, across both its CRM and prospect research offerings. The news was unveiled during the 2026 Innovation Keynote at KindCon, Kindsight's annual customer conference.

The announcements were paired with proprietary new research showing that while fundraisers rate AI judgment nearly on par with human experts in many scenarios, 98% say they would reject letting AI act without human oversight--a finding that is directly shaping how Kindsight designs its AI agents.

"AI is here to stay, but how we build it, and how you use it, is something we're developing with our clients, versus telling them what they need," said Ross Beattie, Kindsight CEO. "Technology should remove points of friction, not people, and it certainly shouldn't take away human connection. If we get this right together, the future of fundraising isn't less human--it's more. Because the technology handles more of the friction and gives people more time for judgment, trust, and relationships."

Kindsight's approach is built on a strategy to deliver AI that is uniquely tuned to specific fundraising processes and ready to use for enterprise teams--developed in partnership with, and validated by, ongoing client research and feedback, including ongoing research into the role AI plays in fundraising and advancement.

AI agents announced at KindCon 2026

Kindsight unveiled a new lineup of AI agents, plus other AI innovations spanning its CRM and prospect research products:

Live Today:

• Trip Planning Agent: Plans in-person fundraising trips end to end by identifying high-priority constituents near a travel destination, sequencing visits, and drafting personalized outreach and a briefing for every meeting. Live in limited availability.
• KI for iWave – Screening Agent: Configures a screening run from a few plain-language questions, then summarizes, filters, and prioritizes results into an action plan. Live in beta.
• KI for iWave – Prospect Summary: Generates a customizable two-page prospect brief combining internal giving history with iWave's wealth and philanthropic insight. Live in limited availability.

Coming Soon:

• Engagement Agent: Runs donor outreach campaigns for mid-tier and annual giving donors from start to finish.
• KI Assistant: Answers questions about an organization's own data in plain language, with no report-building required--simply ask your data.
• KI for iWave – Predictive Models: Predictive scoring to help prioritize prospects.

In addition, Kindsight Intelligence and iWave are now fully available within Kindsight's AdvancementRM CRM, reflecting the company's continued commitment to innovating for its existing customer base.

"We built this lineup around a simple idea: AI should show up exactly where a practitioner is already working, and only take on as much as they're ready to hand over," said Hemant Kashyap, Kindsight CPO. "Trip Planning Agent is a good example--it does the heavy lifting of researching, sequencing, and prepping a major gift trip, but the fundraiser is still the one making the call on every visit and every ask. That's the model we're building across our CRM and Prospect Research technology: AI that removes the busywork without ever taking the judgment out of our clients' hands."

New research: Trust, not just efficiency, determines where AI belongs

Alongside the product news, Kindsight released early findings from a landmark study--the first of its kind--comparing AI performance to human-expert judgment across real-world fundraising scenarios. The groundbreaking blinded study, led by Cherian Koshy, CFRE, CAP®, ACFRE, VP of Market Insights at Kindsight, surveyed over 300 nonprofit professionals across 1,224 fundraising decisions. The key finding: building effective, use-case-specific AI for fundraisers isn't mainly about maximizing efficiency--it's about designing AI that enterprise teams can actually trust.

Key findings include:

• The best source of guidance--AI or human expert--varied significantly by scenario. Respondents preferred human-expert guidance for restricted gift ambiguity 81% of the time, but preferred AI-driven advice for planning major gift trips 89% of the time.
• Human-expert responses were favored in scenarios involving ambiguity, major gifts, or key relationship moments (like donor escalations), whereas AI led when scenarios were less close to the donor and more predictive in nature (like generating performance insights or identifying new grateful patients)

The study is part of an ongoing research effort into the role of AI in fundraising and advancement, with complete findings to be shared later in the fall. Practitioners can participate in the research here.

Taken together, Kindsight's research and recent product announcements point to the same conclusion: effective AI in fundraising isn't one-size-fits-all. It requires calibrating the right level of AI autonomy and human oversight for each specific workflow -- a principle that will continue to guide Kindsight's product strategy into 2027 and beyond.

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About Kindsight

Kindsight builds technology that helps fundraisers make a difference. Founded on over three decades of innovation, and trusted by over 4,500 organizations worldwide, Kindsight is the market leader in advancement and fundraising software, supporting the education, healthcare, and nonprofit sectors to achieve their goals through smarter, more connected fundraising. Natively built upon the Salesforce architecture, Kindsight's Fundraising Platform is anchored in the strength and flexibility of the Ascend CRM, powered by the trusted insights of iWave data, and unified by seamless workflows and connected data.

Kindsight helps organizations discover the right donors, inspire personal connections at scale, and grow giving year after year. With industry-leading prospect research solutions, award-winning fundraising CRMs, a dynamic constituent portal, and an AI assistant built for modern fundraising, Kindsight's product suite is truly changing the game for donor fundraising. Connect your story to donors who care about your cause--at any scale, in real time--that's the power of Kindsight. Learn more at kindsight.io.

SOURCE Kindsight