Prince William has called on the technology sector to unite and assist him in his battle against homelessness. The Prince of Wales hailed plans to utilise AI and data to combat homelessness as “game-changing”, making a heartfelt appeal for tech companies to step up and help solve the issue.
During an on-stage panel discussion at London Tech Week, he stated: “Many of your customers, your clients, will be using data through banking apps, through their phones. I’m not sure you realise how much that data can be used to predict and see problems with potential homelessness before they actually arise, so that’s why I think today is so important that we get that conversation started.”
William, who noted that Homewards was beginning to reach the “meaty” phase of the project three years after its inception, told the audience: “Homelessness is not inevitable. It’s entirely preventable. You guys in this room, the tech world is a huge part of this puzzle.”, reports the Mirror.
Speaking about the six pilot locations for his Homewards project, he said that “what’s causing homelessness in Aberdeen is not what’s causing homelessness in Bournemouth” and “what’s happening in Northern Ireland is not what’s happening in Sheffield” but “there are threads through all of that”.
He said: “Prevention is better than a cure and you guys have got those answers”. William assembled a panel hosted by Jeff Humphrey, an entrepreneur and podcaster, who told the audience: ” Prince William spoke passionately about the need for support for people.”
Sitting alongside William, Linda Gibbs, principal of Bloomberg Associates, discussed how data had been effectively utilised to prevent homelessness in the US, referencing a project in LA where an alert was triggered by someone who had failed to collect their benefits while simultaneously gaining custody of their grandchildren. This resulted in the individual being offered assistance to restore their benefit payments.
Discussing the “Data Lab” which has been established by Homewards, panel member Zahra Bahrololoumi, president and CEO of Salesforce UK and Ireland, emphasised that it was crucial for the data to be utilised within “legal and ethical guidelines”.
She added: “The Lab has the expertise to make sure that the data is used appropriately and responsibly and that’s hugely important to preserve the dignity of human beings.”
Meanwhile, Solange Chamberlain, CEO of retail banking at NatWest, outlined how the bank had begun offering customers the ability to declare they had no fixed address.
During his visit to the Homewards stand in the conference centre after the panel discussion, William gave a spin to a large wall-mounted wheel displaying various methods of preventing homelessness. It stopped on “predictions”, which can be generated about potential homelessness risks using data analysis.
The prince was presented with a computer system where banking information from 5.4million anonymous NatWest customers had been merged with recent census data to identify Scottish areas where individuals faced heightened homelessness risks.
Tim Siret, Insights analyst at Smart Data Foundry, the charitable initiative linked to the University of Edinburgh, demonstrated to the prince how his team had developed a searchable map utilising the data to examine at-risk zones for homelessness across Scotland.
William remarked: “So, it’s game-changing stuff. It looks fantastic.” The prince called it “amazing” and enquired: “How do we take that data and identify that most clearly?”.
William expressed that he was “excited” by the possibilities of employing data to tackle homelessness. He continued: “I think also knowing what to do with that data afterwards is really important. Thank you, it’s really good It’s exciting.”
Chris Parker, founder of Ask:Enact, subsequently demonstrated to William a prototype computer system that utilises AI to supply frontline police and NHS staff with current information about the latest legislation in action, such as offering safeguarding details if a 16 year old were to be stopped by the police.
Pondering how the same model could be implemented across the rest of the UK, William queried: “How do we make what you’ve done here scalable?”.
Reflecting on the royal visit, Hazel Detsiny, who has held the position of executive director at Homewards since September 2025, stated: “The key is that we’ve got to get businesses of all sorts to take responsibility and get in on this as well as the public sector and the third sector, because they’ve got the jobs, they’ve got the tech.
“We’re not fundraisers, we’re not trying to compete with the homelessness charities. We’ve got to be the shoulders for the under charities to stand on.”