AI Empty Chair
During a deliberation, an AI listens to a transcript of the conversation and, when asked, speaks for stakeholders who are affected by the decision but are not in the room. The facilitator reads out or shows the perspective, and the group discusses what it changes. The AI's voice is clearly labelled as a simulation that prompts thinking, not as a substitute for the people themselves.
Use in policy, strategy or community deliberations where important stakeholders are missing and the group risks deciding only from its own point of view.
Solves: Groups decide things that affect people who were never in the room, and nobody notices whose view is absent.
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Step 1: Explain the tool and its limits: it can spark new angles, it cannot speak for real people (5 min).
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Step 2: Start the discussion while the transcript or running notes feed the AI (10-15 min).
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Step 3: Pause and ask the AI which affected stakeholders are missing and how they might see the issue (3 min).
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Step 4: Share one or two of those perspectives with the group and discuss what they change (10-15 min).
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Step 5: Repeat once later in the discussion if useful (10 min).
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Step 6: Close by listing which missing groups need to be consulted for real, and how (5-10 min).
- Frame the output as a question to the room, not an answer: "Could someone in this position see it like this?"
- Invite people with lived experience in the room to correct the AI where it is off.
- Use the final step seriously. The tool's best use is to show who you still need to talk to.
- Without live transcription: brief the AI with the decision and the list of who is in the room, and ask it to name and voice who is missing.