AinoAid

AinoAid is a conversational assistant developed under the EU-funded IMPROVE project and originally prototyped in Finland (2021) with WeEncourage and a consortium of European partners. Its goal is twofold: provide an accessible, anonymous first point of information for people experiencing partner violence, and equip trained professionals (e.g., police, health providers, social workers) with consistent, on-book guidance and referral pathways. The system is being localized for multiple countries; Spain’s Local Police of Valencia (PLV) is currently leading a Spanish deployment focused on translation, accessibility, and fit for local procedures, with a first prototype targeted for release following an intensive testing phase.

Functionally, AinoAid offers plain-language answers about recognizing abuse, understanding options, and identifying risk and safety steps. It provides navigation to relevant services and emergency contacts, with the explicit posture that it complements — not replaces — human responders. For professionals, it is intended as a just-in-time reference to improve how first-line staff engage with victims, standardize responses, and reduce variation in quality of information provided at first contact.

The project emphasizes privacy and safety. Users are not required to download an app or create an account, and conversations are designed to be ephemeral. Guidance is developed and reviewed with country specialists to reflect local law, processes, and terminology, acknowledging that domestic-violence response is highly jurisdiction-specific. Early versions operate with clear “beta” disclaimers, inviting feedback to improve accuracy and coverage.

AinoAid also serves an institutional role by producing privacy-preserving, aggregate insights (e.g., themes of questions, peaks by time/region) that can inform prevention, staffing, and service design. Within IMPROVE (Oct 2022–Sept 2025), partners including WeEncourage, S.I.G.N.A.L. e.V., the University of Münster, the German Police University, and law-enforcement agencies are collaborating to extend the tool to five countries (including Germany and Austria), with Spain’s PLV adapting the model for Spanish-speaking users. As the Valencia team notes, training and iterative human-in-the-loop testing are the most complex phases; the current version is learning from real interactions to improve clarity, accessibility, and cultural fit.

Overall, AinoAid is positioned as a pragmatic, safety-minded bridge: it lowers the threshold for first disclosures, offers consistent guidance to both the public and professionals, and strengthens institutional capacity with timely signals—while keeping humans in the loop for decisions, follow-up, and crisis response.