As artificial intelligence increasingly becomes a primary interface for accessing information, ensuring that AI-generated responses are accurate, transparent, and grounded in trusted sources is increasingly important. Public institutions publishing open data face a new challenge: how to ensure that AI tools referencing their datasets provide verifiable and trustworthy answers.

We are building a technical bridge (using the Model Context Protocol) that connects AI directly to official data portals like CKAN, so that AI-generated responses can be traced back to their original datasets. This reinforces trust in public institutions, helps fight misinformation, makes open data more accessible for citizens and ensures that research or journalism based on that data is grounded in fact.

This project is a collaborative initiative grounded in real-world challenges. Two pilot programmes are taking place in 2026 under the umbrella of the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) in partnership with national governments to become a reproducible and scalable reference of responsible and transparent AI integration with open data infrastructure.

Follow our progress, from research notes to community stories:

If you have any questions or want any additional information about the Open Data Editor, you can contact us at info@okfn.org.

CKAN is the world’s leading open source data management system. Created at OKFN two decades ago and a recognised digital public good (DPG) since 2023, CKAN is the backbone of open data infrastructure on every continent — powering national governments, intergovernmental bodies, and research institutions. 

🎉 We are celebrating 20 years of CKAN with various activities throughout 2026.

This project has been made possible thanks to the generous support of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF). We are grateful for our ongoing partnership in promoting digital literacy and investing in AI for the public good. 

Learn more about its funding programmes here.