Ex-Intel CEO's Mission To Build a Christian AI

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In March, three months after being forced out of his position as the CEO of Intel and sued by shareholders, Patrick Gelsinger took the reins at Gloo, a technology company made for what he calls the 'faith ecosystem' -- think Salesforce for churches, plus chatbots and AI assistants for automating pastoral work and ministry support. Now Gloo's executive chair and head of technology (who's largely free of the shareholder suit), Gelsinger has made it a core mission to soft-power advance the company's Christian principles in Silicon Valley, the halls of Congress and beyond, armed with a fundraised war chest of $110 million. His call to action is also a pitch for AI aligned with Christian values: tech products like those built by Gloo, many of which are built on top of existing large language models, but adjusted to reflect users' theological beliefs.

'My life mission has been [to] work on a piece of technology that would improve the quality of life of every human on the planet and hasten the coming of Christ's return,' he said. Gloo says it serves 'over 140,000 faith, ministry and non-profit leaders'. Though its intended customers are not the same, Gloo's user base pales in comparison with those of AI industry titans: about 800 million active users rely on ChatGPT every week, not to mention Claude, Grok and others.

Gelsinger wants faith to suffuse AI. He has also spearheaded Gloo's Flourishing AI initiative, which evaluates leading large language models' effects on human welfare across seven variables -- in essence gauging whether they are a force for good and for users' religious lives. It's a system adapted from a Harvard research initiative, the Human Flourishing Program. Models like Grok 3, DeepSeek-R1 and GPT-4.1 earn high marks, 81 out of 100 on average, when it comes to helping users through financial questions, but underperform, about 35 out of 100, when it comes to 'Faith,' or the ability, according to Gloo's metrics, to successfully support users' spiritual growth. Gloo's initiative has yet to visibly attract Silicon Valley's attention. A Gloo spokesperson said the company is 'starting to engage' with prominent AI companies. 'I want Zuck to care,' Gelsinger said.

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