In an exciting development, the Industry-Wide Deliberative Forum convened by Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab is announcing the addition of two new companies — DoorDash and Microsoft — joining the group of technology companies Cohere, Meta, Oracle, and PayPal, advised by the Collective Intelligence Project in a collaborative effort to engage the public in shaping the future of AI agents. 

There is a gap between the development of technology, particularly AI, and the public's understanding of these advancements. This Forum is answering the question: what if the public could be more than just passive users of these technologies, but instead take an active role in shaping their progress? This growing group of technology companies is excited to engage in a collaborative approach to consulting the public on these complex issues. 

The inclusion of DoorDash and Microsoft speaks to the importance of this Forum and of engaging the public on the future of AI agents. "We believe the future of AI agents must be shaped thoughtfully, with meaningful public input. This forum provides an important platform to elevate diverse voices and guide the responsible development of AI that all businesses can benefit from,” said Chris Roberts, Director of Community Policy and Safety, at DoorDash. 

“We’re proud to support and participate in this effort.”

The Industry-Wide Deliberative Forum is set to take place in Fall 2025 and will be conducted on the AI-assisted Stanford Online Deliberation Platform. This Forum is rooted in deliberation, which involves bringing together representative samples of the public, presenting them with options and their associated tradeoffs, and encouraging them to reflect on both this education and their personal experiences. Research has shown that deliberative methods yield more thoughtful feedback for decision-makers, as individuals must consider the complexities of the issues at hand, rather than simply top-of-mind reactions.

“Microsoft is excited to join this cross-industry collaborative effort to better understand public perspectives on how to build the next generation of trustworthy AI systems,” Amanda Craig, Senior Director of Public Policy, Office of Responsible AI, Microsoft. 

The collaboration encourages thoughtful feedback rather than reactive opinions, ensuring that the public’s perspective is both informed and actionable. “Welcoming DoorDash and Microsoft to our collaborative table is an excellent opportunity to broaden the impact of our work,” said James Fishkin, Director of Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab. “This expansion embodies a shared commitment to collectively shaping our future with AI through public consultations that are both representative and thoughtful.”

Media Contact: Alice Siu, Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab

There is a significant gap between what technology, especially AI technology, is being developed and the public's understanding of such technologies. We must ask: what if the public were not just passive recipients of these technologies, but active participants in guiding their evolution?

A group of technology companies convened by Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab will gather public feedback about complex questions the AI industry is considering while developing AI agents. This convening includes Cohere, Meta, Oracle, and PayPal, advised by the Collective Intelligence Project.

This Industry-Wide Forum brings together everyday people to weigh in on tech policy and product development decisions where there are difficult tradeoffs with no simple answers. Technology development is moving so quickly, there is no better time than right now to engage the public in understanding what an informed public would like AI technologies to do for them. This Forum is designed based on Stanford's method of Deliberative Polling, a governance innovation that empowers the public’s voices to have a greater say in decision-making. This Forum will take place in Fall 2025. Findings from this Forum will be made public, and Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab will hold webinars for the public to learn and inquire about the findings.

"We're proud to be a founding participant in this initiative alongside Stanford and other AI leaders," said Saurabh Baji, CTO of Cohere. "This collaborative approach is central to enhancing trust in agentic AI and paving the way for strengthened cross-industry standards for this technology. We're looking forward to working together to shape the future of how agents serve enterprises and people."

In the near term, AI Agents will be expected to conduct a myriad of transactions on behalf of users, opening up considerable opportunities to offer great value as well as significant risks. This Forum will improve product market fit by giving companies foresight into what users want from AI Agents; it will help build trust and legitimacy with users; and it will strengthen cross-industry relations in support of industry standards development over time.

"We support The Forum for its deliberative and collaborative approach to shaping public discourse around AI agents," said Prakhar Mehrotra, SVP of AI at PayPal. "Responsibility and trust are core business principles for PayPal, and through collaborative efforts like these, we seek to encourage valuable perspectives that can help shape the future of agentic commerce."

The Forum will be conducted on the AI-assisted Stanford Online Deliberation Platform, a collaboration between Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab and Crowdsourced Democracy Team, where a cross-section of the public will deliberate in small groups and share their perspectives, their lived experiences, and their expectations for AI products. This deliberation platform has hosted Meta’s Community Forums over the past few years. The Forum will also incorporate insights from CIP's Global Dialogues, conducted on the Remesh platform.

“Community Forums provide us with people’s considered feedback, which helps inform how we innovate,” said Rob Sherman, Meta’s Vice President, AI Policy & Deputy Chief Privacy Officer. “We look forward to the insights from this cross-industry partnership, which will provide a deeper understanding of people’s views on cutting-edge technology.”

This methodology is rooted in deliberation, which provides representative samples of the public with baseline education on a topic, including options with associated tradeoffs, and asks them to reflect on that education as well as their lived experience. Deliberative methods have been found to offer more considered feedback to decision-makers because people have to weigh the complexity of an issue rather than offering a knee-jerk reaction.

"This industry-wide deliberative forum represents a crucial step in democratizing the discourse around AI agents, ensuring that the public's voice is heard in a representative and thoughtful way as we collectively shape the future of this transformative technology," said James Fishkin, Director of Stanford's Deliberative Democracy Lab.

This Industry-Wide Forum represents a pivotal step in responsible AI development, bringing together technology companies and the public to address complex challenges in AI agent creation. By leveraging Stanford's Deliberative Polling methodology and making findings publicly available, the initiative promises to shape the future of AI with enhanced transparency, trust, and user-centric focus. Find out more about Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab at deliberation.stanford.edu.

Media Contact: Alice Siu, Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab

In October 2024, Meta, in collaboration with the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab, implemented the third Meta Community Forum. This Community Forum expanded on the October 2023 deliberations regarding Generative AI. For this Community Forum, the participants deliberated on ‘how should AI agents provide proactive, personalized experiences for users?’ and ‘how should AI agents and users interact?’

At a high level, Meta used this Forum to:

• Expand public input into AI development beyond the Global North, and into the Global South. This latest Forum involved roughly 1,000 people from India, Turkey, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.
• Push the boundaries on the topics that the public will have input into. We moved from the foundational principles people wanted to see in GenAI towards addressing specific value and risk tradeoffs associated with issues like personalization and human-like AI.

The Forum resulted in several key findings on the principles that should underpin AI agents, including:
 

• Participants supported AI agents remembering their prior conversations to personalize their experience, especially if transparency and user controls are in place.
• Participants were more supportive of culturally/regionally-tailored AI agents compared to standardized AI agents.
• Participants were in favor of human-like AI agents that can respond to emotional cues.
• Across topics, participants consistently favored options for AI to include transparency and user control features.