For two decades, the annual fundraiser for Tipping Point Community has been one of the marquee events of San Francisco’s social calendar, raising tens of millions to combat familiar Bay Area crises such as homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health challenges. But this year, the event focused its fire on a new foe: AI.

Tipping Point, the anti-poverty philanthropy cofounded in 2005 by Mayor Daniel Lurie, switched its focus this year to the massive disruptions many believe AI will soon cause to the labor market. And CEO Sam Cobbs told The Standard the pivot was not a one-off — it’s part of a larger shift for the organization.

“Our work on some level needs to evolve, because of both the opportunity and the disruption that AI is going to bring, especially in the Bay Area,” Cobbs said. “We’ve done work around workforce development [and] education for the last 20 years. But there’s nowhere that you can go without the conversation being about AI.”

The Tipping Point Gala, held Thursday at the Bill Graham Auditorium, raised more than $40 million from a room full of SF’s biggest names to fund AI training and job reskilling for low-income workers, as well as efforts to get local nonprofits up to speed on the technology.

The fundraising haul was anchored by a $25 million gift from Apple campus developer John Sobrato and his wife, Sue. The Atherton billionaires’ family foundation, which has given more than $1.5 billion to increasing economic equality in the region, said this gift — one of its largest ever — is in keeping with that mission.

“AI is going to reshape the economy, whether we’re ready for it or not,” Sobrano Philanthropies President Alexa Cortés Culwell told The Standard. “We see it as a critical moment to play a leadership role to ensure that the transition benefits all of our communities, and not just some.”

Though Lurie stepped down as CEO of Tipping Point in 2019, the charity continues to be funded by a who’s-who of Lurie world. The organization made its name with the Chronic Homelessness Initiative, which tried and failed to cut homelessness in SF in half by 2022. Other programs have included the 2008 Mental Health Initiative to connect low-income residents with clinical services and a 2017 wildfire relief effort.

But the nonprofit has been signaling a new focus on the impacts of AI since December, when it launched a partnership with Anthropic to provide up to 50 nonprofits with free six-month access to Claude Enterprise. Anthropic president and cofounder Daniela Amodei, a San Francisco native, made an appearance at Thursday’s gala and praised the nonprofit’s efforts, saying, “We can choose to use this moment to expand opportunity and access, or to continue to widen the yawning chasm of inequality.”

Cobbs said the decision to focus on AI came out of discussions with many people, including the well-connected tech founders and investors who make up Tipping Point’s donor pool. Questions about how AI will affect the economy — including whether it will create a so-called permanent underclass (opens in new tab) — have been swirling among Silicon Valley elites in recent years, as AI has started to mimic and even surpass the capacities of some human workers. OpenAI and other companies have gone so far as to suggest the creation of a “public wealth fund” to counteract the job loss wrought by AI.

Tipping Point seems to be focused on smaller, near-term solutions, such as reskilling programs that will push people into AI-resilient industries like healthcare or energy. Cobbs said the group also wants to focus on training people who already have jobs in AI so that they stay current on the technology, and on helping local nonprofits use it in a way that will enable them to “do less with more.”

He noted the irony of watching downtown San Francisco — once a focal point of Tipping Point’s anti-poverty efforts — flood back to life with workers for AI companies, whose products could eventually bring about more poverty. He praised the majority of people working in AI for understanding the disruption their products will cause but urged them to put their money where their mouths are.

“We need the employees to step up and invest in the place that is making them all really rich,” he said.