Missions Publiques: AI governance
A student workshop used Harmonica to capture participant input and make shared summaries available to facilitators during the programme.
Published case · 27 June 2025
Bring people’s perspectives into public deliberation.
For civic organisations and teams designing public engagement. Use one-to-one AI conversations alongside workshops and other ways to participate, then review the contributions to prepare the next discussion.
Used within facilitated programmes.
CMI: stakeholder programme planning
CMI used stakeholder conversations across regions and languages to inform its programme planning, with a defined group of participants.
Published case · 27 June 2025
These workshop and stakeholder engagements show where Harmonica fitted into a wider process. They do not establish representative coverage of a population.
Make room for context before the next discussion.
People have different ways into a conversation
Time, access, language and confidence with a format all affect who can take part. A public meeting is one route; an online conversation is another. Neither reaches everyone by itself.
Add a route alongside meetings
Share a conversation link through your outreach channels so people can respond in their own time. Keep other ways to contribute available, and check which perspectives your recruitment has not yet reached.
A position can leave its reasons unsaid
A response to a proposal may depend on a local experience, a condition or a trade-off. Understanding that context can help a facilitator decide which questions deserve further discussion.
Explore the context behind a view
Set a question and provide the background for the engagement. Harmonica runs individual chats with follow-up questions, giving people space to explain experiences and conditions behind their answers.
A summary still needs interpretation
Grouping responses does not settle a public question. Differences within a theme, less common experiences and people who did not participate still matter when you decide what the material can tell you.
Prepare material for facilitated review
Read themes and possible areas of agreement alongside original contributions. Keep disagreements visible, compare with other evidence, and bring the unresolved questions into the next workshop or public discussion.
Ready to get started?
Start for freeFeatures that matter for public engagement
Share a conversation link. Use the channels your engagement already relies on to invite contributions. Explain the purpose, who will read responses and how the input will be used.
Cross-pollination for reflective rounds (Pro). Emerging group themes can enter individual conversations. This can influence later answers; plan it as part of a deliberative process rather than treating those answers as independent responses.
Themes alongside contributions. Review the synthesis with what participants said. Decide which findings need qualification, which disagreements need discussion and what further listening is needed.
Model and hosting options. Connect provider API keys through BYOM, or explore self-hosting as a separate deployment option. Review the hosting and pricing options against the engagement's data-handling requirements.
Open-source core. Inspect the code, explore self-hosting and contribute improvements. Explore the projects on GitHub.
Facilitation support. Work with our team on question design, the participation plan and reviewing findings within the wider programme. See our services.
Plan the listening round within your programme.
Decide what the engagement can influence, whose perspectives you need and how conversations fit alongside workshops and other ways to contribute.
Share the link through your outreach channels. Explain who will read contributions, what will be shared and the alternative ways people can take part.
Read themes and contributions alongside other evidence. Bring disagreements into facilitated review and explain how the input informed the process and which decisions remain.
Design participation with clear expectations.
Help people understand their choices and the role of their input.
Discuss your engagementDoes a conversation link make engagement representative?
Who takes part still depends on recruitment, access, language and people’s willingness to contribute. Plan outreach and other ways to participate, check who is missing, and report the limits of the input you received.
Who can read individual contributions?
Explain who will have access to responses and what will be shared publicly. One-to-one describes the conversation format. Names, an invited roster, an email supplied for a response copy or details in an answer can identify someone; review the setup and material before sharing.
What happens after the listening round?
Review the themes alongside individual contributions and other evidence. Bring disagreements and open questions into facilitated discussion, and explain how the input informed the process. The responsible people and institutions make the decisions.
Start with a public question worth exploring
Try a focused listening round or discuss how Harmonica could fit within your engagement. Start with the question, the participants and what can happen with their contributions.