UNICEF

Strengthening Global Authority in the Age of AI Answers

UNICEF, the global authority on child rights, survival and welfare, operates one of the world’s largest digital ecosystems with more than 500,000 pages across 180 Drupal websites in 190+ countries. When people search for answers about child poverty, child welfare or humanitarian response, UNICEF is the authority that informs those answers.

But information discovery is changing. As AI platforms powered by large language models (LLMs) began reshaping how answers are generated, UNICEF saw increasing volatility in traditional search traffic and recognized that it could no longer rely on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rankings alone. To maintain its authority and combat misinformation, UNICEF needed its digital ecosystem to be structured so AI systems could accurately interpret, surface and cite its data as the trusted source behind those answers.

WHAT WE DID

Omnichannel Experience
Technical SEO Audit
AI Readiness Assessment
Strategic Roadmapping
Team Training & Enablement

Approach

Enabling AI Recognition: We designed an AEO/GEO assessment to shift UNICEF’s digital presence from traditional SEO visibility to AI discovery and machine-readable authority, focusing on the gap between conventional site health and the structural requirements of AI systems.

Dual-Track Diagnostic: Material analyzed 30 representative page templates across technical and content dimensions. We evaluated code quality and architecture alongside an “AI-readiness” assessment, testing how LLMs interpret and cite UNICEF content in response to user intent-driven prompts related to child rights.

Understanding the Machine’s Mind: The Diagnostic phase established how often AI-generated answers cited UNICEF and identified the technical gaps preventing its content from being surfaced. Using Acquia SEO Conductor, we audited the digital estate to ensure UNICEF’s data can be easily parsed, verified and cited by AI at scale.

Bridge to Execution: We translated the findings into clear development tasks and a prioritized engineering backlog. This gives the technical teams a ready-made roadmap to move into execution, ensuring search engines and AI systems can better understand, trust and surface UNICEF’s content.

Technical & AI audit reports delivered

29+

Prioritized user stories in DevOps backlog

Capacity building workshops conducted

100%

Strategic roadmap completion

Outcomes

This work positions UNICEF to shift from a passive technical presence to an active steward of its digital authority in the “age of answers.” Through a success metrics framework and by training internal teams on AI-driven discovery, Material equipped UNICEF to own its roadmap and maintain consistency across its multilingual ecosystem. With these recommendations in place, UNICEF will be able to actively monitor and manage how its data is interpreted, cited and surfaced, ensuring its trusted information remains a definitive source as AI reshapes global access to knowledge.

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CONTACT