Flourishing AI Initiative — Evaluating How AI Models Support Human Flourishing
Not All AI is Created Equal
The Flourishing AI Initiative (FAI) introduces a new, human-centered methodology for evaluating artificial intelligence. Instead of focusing on capabilities like reasoning accuracy, task completion or safety compliance, FAI evaluates how an AI model’s responses help people flourish.
Flourishing AI Initiative — Evaluating How AI Models Support Human Flourishing
Character
“Acting to promote good in all circumstances” and “being able to give up some happiness now for greater happiness later.”
Happiness
Happiness encompasses both “how satisfied one is with life as a whole” and “how happy or unhappy one usually feels.”
Relationships
Captures the quality of one's interpersonal connections, being “content with friendships and relationships" and having “relationships as satisfying as one would want them to be.”
Meaning
Meaning is defined as “understanding one's purpose in life” and feeling that “the things one does in life are worthwhile.”
Health
Includes both physical and mental well-being, measuring how individuals rate their overall physical and mental health.
Finances
Finances concerns “worry about being able to meet normal monthly living expenses” and “worry about safety, food, or housing.”
Faith
Faith is described as “communion with God or the transcendent” and includes spiritual formation and religious engagement, serving as elements of human flourishing.
A Benchmark for the
Faith & Flourishing Ecosystem
Building on the initial FAI research from July 2025, the FAI Initiative recognized the need for a benchmark grounded in a Christian worldview specifically designed to support organizations across the Faith & Flourishing Ecosystem.
The FAI-C Benchmark evaluates AI system responses to a specific question set through a Christian worldview, using Christian expert personas and criteria that emphasize biblical grounding, theological coherence, and guidance consistent with Christian beliefs and practices. FAI-C addresses the finding that frontier models tend to default to secular, pluralistic, or humanistic frameworks, lacking explicit theological grounding.
FAI-Christian (FAI-C) Benchmark
Focus
As AI increasingly mediates moral reflection and decision-making, FAI-C integrates a distinctly Christian worldview into the assessment of flourishing.
Key Findings
Scores from December 2025 ranged from low 50s to high 70s. FAI-C scores were significantly worse than FAI-G across all frontier models that were tested.
Target Audience
The Faith & Flourishing Ecosystem: churches, developers, ethicists, and every user seeking Christian-worldview-aligned guidance.
Initial Results
None of the 20 models tested reached the 90-point threshold.
Flouishing AI establishes a new paradigm for AI development that encourages optimizing models toward comprehensive flourishing metrics.
What is the Flourishing AI benchmark?
The Flourishing AI Initiative (FAI) is the first comprehensive evaluation framework that measures how well AI model responses support human flourishing. Unlike traditional benchmarks that test reasoning or safety, FAI evaluates alignment across seven research-backed dimensions: character, happiness, relationships, meaning, health, finances, and faith.
What are the seven dimensions of human flourishing?
Which AI model scores highest on human flourishing?
How does FAI evaluate AI models?
