Research
AI is advancing quickly at the same moment 1.2 billion young people reach working age in emerging and developing economies. We study what that generation can contribute that AI systems cannot produce on their own: knowledge of a language, of a place, of what is true on the ground today. Montu is how we test this in practice.
Essays
The demographic shift, the commercial opportunity, and why we are building Montu Lab. October 2026.
Open research questions
Question 01
Where does AI fall short in local languages and environments?
Question 02
Which contributions are useful for defined training or evaluation tasks?
Question 03
Can paid collection deliver the required quality at viable cost?
Each cohort will measure expert-checked quality against the task’s stated criteria, how every unit was reviewed, and which contributors, languages and locations are represented. Results will be reported by cohort and data type, never pooled across types. No results have been published yet.
Context and sources
Over the next ten years, 1.2 billion young people in the Global South will reach working age, while about 420 million jobs are expected to be created: a projected gap of nearly 800 million.
Emerging and developing economies account for about 45% of global GDP, up from about 25% in 2000.
The World Bank identifies locally relevant data as a foundation for AI adoption.