For government & civic organizations
Every voice. Not just the loudest ones.
Traditional public engagement has a sampling problem: town halls attract the engaged, the angry, or the organized. Everyone else stays home. Harmonica lets you hear from the quiet majority — with conversations that feel personal and synthesis that scales to hundreds of participants.
Why public input falls short. And what changes when it doesn't.
Town halls favor organized voices
Public meetings attract advocacy groups, retirees with time, and people with a grievance. The working parent, the recent immigrant, the person who's skeptical their input will matter: they don't show up. Your "public input" reflects who attended, not who lives there.
A private 1-on-1 for every participant
Each citizen gets their own conversation with the AI facilitator. No public speaking required. No dominant voices to navigate around. People share more honestly when they're not performing for a room (or a comment section).
Surveys are too shallow for complex issues
Yes/no polling and 5-point scales can't capture the nuance of real community concerns. People have conditions, trade-offs they'd accept, and reasons for their positions that a survey question can't reach. And "57% support the proposal" doesn't help you design it better.
Anonymous by default, reach the hard-to-reach
Harmonica's anonymity-first design matters for civic work: undocumented residents, employees commenting on city services, people with unpopular views. A shareable link is all they need. No account, no data they didn't choose to give.
No way to synthesize across hundreds of inputs
Even when you collect open-ended responses at scale, someone has to read them all and decide what "most people" said. That's a subjective process that takes weeks, and the summary reflects whoever summarized it, not necessarily what participants actually said.
AI synthesis across hundreds of voices
When your session closes, Harmonica produces a structured synthesis: consensus points, tensions, and emerging themes across all participants. On Pro, cross-pollination shares themes in real time so participants can respond to what others are raising. The result is a genuine map of community sentiment, not a staff member's summary.
Ready to get started?
Start for freeBuilt for civic and public sector work
Features that matter for public engagement
No accounts for participants. Share a link via email, SMS, social media, or printed QR code. Reduces friction dramatically for people who wouldn't otherwise engage.
Cross-pollination without a group dynamic (Pro). Themes from other participants are shared back into individual conversations — so everyone benefits from collective intelligence without needing to be in the same room.
Structured results you can stand behind. Session summaries include themes, tensions, and consensus — with the AI-generated synthesis clearly distinguishable from raw participant quotes.
BYOM for data residency. Public sector organizations often have strict data requirements. Bring your own AI model so LLM inference runs on your own API keys — your prompts and responses don't pass through Harmonica's AI providers. For full data sovereignty, self-host the open-source version.
Open source core. Harmonica is AGPL-licensed. Public sector organizations can self-host, audit the code, and contribute improvements. See it on GitHub.
Expert facilitation available. For high-stakes processes, our team can design the session structure, monitor results in real time, and deliver a professional synthesis report. See our services.
How it works
Getting started is easy.
Share your objective and give us context about your team. We'll design the right questions to get you the insights you need.
Share the link with your team and analyze responses in real-time. You'll see themes and patterns emerge as people contribute.
Transform input into actionable insights. Get the clarity you need to make decisions and move your team forward.
Ready to hear from more than the usual suspects?
Whether you're gathering input on a local planning decision or running a national policy consultation, we can help you design a process that actually reaches people. Start with the free tier or talk to us about your specific context.