AI with Purpose: Showcasing AI That Makes a Difference

At Unicorn Factory Lisboa, we meet new business ideas and startups every day, and one thing almost all of them have in common is AI. Whether it powers the core product or simply makes day-to-day operations run smoother, AI has become part of how nearly every startup works.

But AI can be much more than a tool for more efficient business. It can be used to build solutions that have a positive effect on society, that improve our lives and that carry a real purpose. That was the motto of yesterday's event, AI with Purpose, held on 22 September at AIhub by Unicorn Factory Lisboa. We brought together startups from our Engineers Hub, greenhub and healthhub to showcase the remarkable solutions that can be created with AI.

Why purpose matters now

As AI develops at an ever faster pace, the question of what it is being built for has become a growing concern, and not only for us. In recent weeks, it has been raised by the biggest names in the industry.

On 8 September, researcher Jacob Coxon announced on X that he had resigned from Anthropic, saying he had spent three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic and that neither company was acting responsibly. His warning spread quickly, and senior Anthropic researchers publicly backed the core of his concerns within days.

Shortly after, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling on AI companies to slow the pace of capabilities development, drawing support from OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk in a rare display of unity among the industry's biggest figures. His proposal included independent evaluators inside leading AI labs, common safety standards among democratic countries and eventual international limits on dangerous capabilities. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt had also warned that AI models risk being hacked to remove the safeguards built into them.

When the people building the most powerful AI systems in the world call for more care, it becomes clear that the question is no longer only what AI can do, but what it should do, and for whom.

An Innovation Day for Lisbon AI Week

With this in mind, we dedicated our Innovation Day for Lisbon AI Week to how AI-powered solutions are shaping real societal impact: from health to urban innovation and beyond. More than 120 participants joined us for an afternoon of talks, showcases and conversations.

Urban Track: AI for resilient cities and smarter resources

The first track explored how intelligent technologies can help us rethink the systems that shape everyday life. Pedro Fernandes, Machine Learning Lead at TEKEVER, opened with Technology in Service of Resilience, looking at how AI can help communities respond better under pressure and emergency cenarios, from wildfires to search and rescue. Francisco Pais de Sousa, Co-founder of L.ai - Holistic Waste Management, followed with Rethinking Waste, Rethinking Value, showing that some of AI's most meaningful applications are found in the systems we rarely think about, and by using impact theory we can create solutions that help us live better now and in the future.

Manie, Constructer.ai and AiTecServ then took the stage to showcase how they are using AI to make cities, environments and shared systems work better for people and the planet.

Health Track: AI for better care

The second track asked what happens when AI helps healthcare reach people earlier, more often and where it matters most. We introduced the healthhub Open Innovation Program under the banner Show Up Before the Problem Does, a new way of tackling real prevention challenges together with the ecosystem. Pedro Maurício, Portugal Accounting Executive at Tucuvi, then spoke on Extending the Reach of Care, exploring how technology can improve the support provided to patients beyond traditional settings while keeping human needs at the centre.

Simpl.care, UpSpeech and Usawa Care closed the track by showing how AI can help health systems care for more people, more effectively.

Closing Keynote: the long view

Rodrigo Fernandes, Co-founder of Augusta Labs, closed the programme with Beyond Today: AI's Long-Term Impact on Society, a reflection on how AI will shape the way we work, live, make decisions and relate to one another.

For Rodrigo, the real challenge is not to stop innovation, but to make sure AI does not increase the risk of global threats such as biological attacks. He argues that technological progress must be matched by more "prevention, control, international cooperation and political preparedness."

Sunset on the terrace

The day ended with our Networking Showcase Sunset. Over food and drinks, participants visited the startup booths, where Typeble, BloodFlow and Lampsy joined the startups from the showcases, met the founders behind the solutions and saw AI with a purpose in action as the sun went down over Lisbon.

Thank you

A heartfelt thank you to our speakers, to the startups from Engineers Hub, greenhub and healthhub who shared their work, and to everyone who joined us. The future of AI will be shaped by the choices founders make about what to build and why, and we are proud to be part of a community that chooses purpose.

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