Part 2 of our exploration of AI and the “religion beat”

Some are daring to take a deep-AI dive toward what they hope is divine

EDITOR’s NOTE: Sponsored by the Communications Committee of the International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ), these columns are designed as brainstorming opportunities. To send us suggestions or responses, see the contact information below.

Thank you to colleagues who sent me suggestions about AI-related religion-beat stories after my July column, headlined: What does AI say about religion in your part of the world? I am labeling this “Part 2 of our exploration of AI,” because in this column I am jumping straight into some specific story ideas.

Explore what the United Nations is organizing and funding around the world with religious leaders. The UN’s approach to AI is multi-faceted and involves initiatives through many of the institution’s global arms. A good starting point to explore this complexity is the UN’s AI overview page. One initiative involves how AI relates to “sustainable development,” which is yet another online doorway into the UN and connects with the UN’s involvement with global religious leaders. In 2026, UN hosted a historic gathering on these issues at Al-Azhar, one of the world’s most prestigious centers for Islamic studies. Egypt’s online State Information Service covered the June event. So did Egypt Today‘s online service.

Al-Azhar itself is both using AI and warning about its abuse. If you dig into this story, you’ll find many cautionary voices associated with Al-Azhar warning against AI abuse, including strong warnings about substituting AI judgments on matters of Islamic law for the nuances and compassion of a human scholar passing such judgments. However, at the same time, Al-Azhar faculty is using AI to build searchable databases of ancient Islamic manuscripts, particularly those archived documents that are not available to most modern readers.

Despite warnings about using AI for judgments based on Islamic tradition, many are trying to do just that. Check out the Malaysia-based Nur-AI, which claims to be “The World’s First Shariah-Aligned Intelligence Model.” News reports in that part of the world indicate that Nur-AI is being sold, in part, to financial institutions that want assurance they are following Shariah in their transactions. Here’s a PR Newswire press release about the new system, written by the people behind this unusual partnership between software entrepreneurs and government officials in Malaysia. And it’s worth noting that these initiatives are racing faster than global information databases like Wikipedia can catch up. As of posting this column, Wikipedia has no entry explaining this Malaysian effort that has been unfolding rapidly over the past year.

Islam is not unique in this ambivalence toward AI. The Vatican is both one of the most influential voices warning against the dangers of AI and, at the same time, has been snapping up both digital-scanning technologies and AI adaptations to make its vast resources of historic documents available to readers around the world. Digitization of Vatican Library holdings has been ongoing for a couple of decades. Now, additional efforts are using AI to sort ancient manuscripts and provide organized gateways into those deep pools of potential wisdom.

There are lots of global AI startups working on individual religious projects. This means there are related stories to report from “the religion beat” all around the world. Just one example is Tokyo-based TOPPAN, which recently announced a partnership with the Vatican to use a unique AI-powered software system developed in Japan to decipher a particularly difficult-to-read version of medieval Greek.

But, as good journalists, be very skeptical of AI claims about faith-based projects. A great example of this is the controversy over Magisterium AI, which a number of religion journalists have covered over the past year. The Canadian company boasts that they have built: “The World’s No. 1 Answer Engine for the Catholic Church.” But, in fact, there are a growing number of news reports about Magisterium AI skewing its findings toward conservative readings of Catholic tradition. For example, The National Catholic Reporter took on Magisterium’s flaws. You’ll also find critiques of this service—which seems to claim official status in the Catholic church, but has plenty of flaws—in other news publications, including The Washington Post.

I could go on and on and on. Bottom line: Wherever you live in the world, you are likely to find an AI-powered religion project unfolding. That’s even true at the congregational level, where global research shows that the vast majority of clergy—of all faiths—are using AI on a weekly basis as a research tool and even in preparing their weekly messages to the faithful.

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Let’s make this as easy as possible: David Crumm, a veteran religion writer, magazine editor and publisher based in Michigan in the U.S., writes this column on behalf of the IARJ Communications Committee. If you’ve got further ideas to share about any item in this column, email David directly at david.crumm @ gmail.com

Or, if you’ve reported these kinds of stories, send David a link that we can include in a future column.

The IARJ is dedicated to assisting religion journalists around the world to help each other find ever more meaningful ways to report on the significant impact of religion in communities around the world.