Are you experimenting with AI tools in your evaluation work, but wondering if you're doing it right? You’re not alone. This participatory webinar is designed for evaluators who’ve started using AI in small ways and are hitting real-world friction: client pushback, ethical gray zones, or confusion about what’s actually allowed.
Facilitated by two evaluation consultants who’ve tested AI tools on the job, this session will unpack the practical, ethical, and contractual challenges of using AI—especially when working with government and public sector clients. We’ll share cautionary tales, lessons learned, and invite you to bring your own dilemmas and doubts.
Whether you’ve used AI to draft reports, summarize data, or brainstorm frameworks, this is a space to reflect, troubleshoot, and crowdsource strategies for responsible, transparent use. Skip the hype—this is an honest conversation for evaluators figuring it out as they go.
PRESENTED BY Melissa McGuire, CE and Liz Martin, CE
WHEN: June 19th, 2025 12:00PM - 1:00 PM EST
WHERE: CES webinars take place online using Zoom. You can check the system requirements for using Zoom here.
REGISTRATION: Please go here to register:
COST: Free for CES and non-CES members
LANGUAGES: English
Biographies of presenters
Melissa McGuire is a leader and seasoned program evaluation consultant at Cathexis Consulting Inc., where she helps public sector and nonprofit clients make sense of complex programs through strategic evaluation and evidence-informed insights. With a strong track record, she brings a systems lens to understanding what works — and why.
Melissa is also an early and thoughtful adopter of artificial intelligence in her consulting practice and has introduced a number of AI tools to the Cathexis team. From automating routine analysis tasks to using generative AI to streamline proposal development and stakeholder communication, she has actively explored how these tools can increase efficiency without sacrificing creativity, rigour, or ethics.
At the same time, she brings a critical eye to AI’s limitations — particularly around bias, transparency, and its implications for equity-focused work. She’s engaged in ongoing conversations about how AI can support (rather than displace) human judgment in social impact spaces, and how consultants and funders alike can use it responsibly.
Liz Martin is a Senior Consultant at Cathexis Consulting, where she leads strategic evaluations that prioritize equity, clarity, and real-world use. She’s especially interested in how emerging tools, like AI, can be responsibly integrated into evaluation practice.
Liz approaches AI not as a shiny shortcut, but as a tool that demands nuance, ethics, and a healthy dose of skepticism. Her work blends analytical depth with a human-centered ethos, and just enough whimsy to keep the process curious, creative, and grounded. She’s optimistic about AI’s potential to enhance evaluation if we look past the hype and stay rooted in thoughtful, purpose-driven use.
Learning Objectives
This webinar builds evaluators’ capacity to use AI tools thoughtfully, ethically, and credibly in real-world work, in line with the following Competencies for Canadian Evaluation Practice (referenced here):