senze.ai civic · Democracy in conversation
Everyone heard,
as if in a small circle.
We turn citizen dialogues into shared insight, without replacing the conversation.
In practice · Mehr Demokratie e.V.
The Big Conversation: Talking about home
In October 2026, volunteers across Germany are hosting around 100 events. At each event, several conversation circles meet at the same time, following the Sprechen & Zuhören method (Speaking & Listening): each circle spends three rounds on a single question, How do I feel about Heimat, about home? When everyone in a circle agrees, senze.ai civic records the conversation, anonymizes it and analyzes it.
The Big Conversation (German) ↗ Mehr Demokratie e.V. (German) ↗ The Speaking & Listening format (German) ↗
- Events
- ~100
- Circles of 4 people
- several × 4
- Rounds
- 3
How it works
How a dialogue unfolds.
Step 1 · Human
Choosing the question
The organization decides what people talk about and in which format.
“How do I feel about the sense of community where I live?”
Someone says something in a circle. Three others listen.
This happens at many tables at once. We transcribe and anonymize every conversation.
The AI summarizes what people talked about and where their views diverge.
For every theme, we show the statements behind it.
“Community, to me, is when someone listens without answering right away.”
1“Community, to me, is when someone listens without answering right away.”
2“Everyone says hello at the bakery. But for a long time, nobody asked how I was really doing.”
3“Only when [Name] talked about the old days did I understand why she is so cautious.”
Made-up example, not real statements.
Why us
Common ground starts with listening and being heard, not with agreement.
Whether a citizen dialogue succeeds is decided in the conversation itself: do people listen to each other, and is there room for quiet and dissenting voices? Our partners shape that with their own methods. We don't facilitate. We bring many conversation circles together in one analysis, and every result can be traced back to individual statements.
That takes understanding both the technology and how people talk in groups. We are a small team with backgrounds in cognitive science, AI development and organizational development, and experience in consulting, coaching and conflict work.
What guides us
- analogdigital
People talk to each other, not to a device.
The encounter happens in the room; technology stays in the background.
- In practice
- One device per group records. Nobody has to install anything or look at a screen.
- nuancedcondensed
Traceable, not a black box.
Every finding leads back to the statements behind it. You don't have to take the AI's word for it; you can check.
- In practice
- For every theme we show the anonymized statements, including lone and dissenting voices.
- humanmachine
People interpret, people decide.
The AI sorts and suggests. What it means and what happens next is for the participants to decide.
- In practice
- Results are suggestions for a group to read, check and discuss together.
Privacy
How we protect the conversations.
These four rules apply to every conversation.
Voluntary
Each circle decides for itself. If one person says no, we don't record.
Anonymized
We automatically remove personal details before any analysis.
In Europe
We process the data in the EU and store it encrypted in Frankfurt.
No training
We don't train AI models on the conversations, and we don't sell them.