Hear – and be heard.
A Better Way to Listen
Amplifying unheard voices through a new kind of conversation for your neighborhood, classroom, workplace, or community – powered by a thoughtful balance of human listening and AI tools.
News.
The Latest from Cortico
Voices: Cortico’s latest newsletter
Our Q1 newsletter features 4 new voice medleys — from hard-to-reach voters to healthcare communities to — a Cortico first — sports fans around the world.
> Check out Voices now
Conversations on Free Expression
Knight Foundation and Cortico are launching a project to understand how people across the country are making sense of the First Amendment and free expression in their daily lives.
The American Conversation Project for Libraries
This Civic Season, we’re inviting libraries across the country to host a new kind of community conversation. Sign-up deadline June 8.
Cortico on Campus
Since spring 2025, college students from around the country have been leading Cortico conversations at their schools.
Hear about the experiences from two of the program’s Lead Fellows.
Zealous — Listening for Freedom
Small-group conversations with people directly impacted by the criminal legal system revealed a vision of what freedom could actually look like, from the people closest to the harm.
Words Without Consequence
Speech has been decoupled from consequence. When language no longer binds a speaker, what happens to human dignity?
Cortico Cofounder and CEO Deb Roy for The Atlantic
How It Works
Talk
Start with a good conversation. Gather a small group to share personal stories and experiences. Each conversation is recorded, with transcripts generated automatically to allow the steps that follow.
Understand
Cortico’s tools enable you to surface patterns across conversations through sensemaking– a systematic listening process led by people and supported by AI tools.
Share
Share media outputs that incorporate real voices and data-driven insights to build understanding grounded in listening.
Cortico: Hear & Be Heard from Cortico on Vimeo
Our Partners
We enable partners to surface underheard voices and perspectives that help them…
- Inform public policy
- Make better decisions
- Hire leadership
- Resolve conflict
- Empower young leaders
- Enhance community journalism
- Improve workplace culture
Testimonials
Cortico, in the words of our partners…
- Amber Wells, Community Engagement Analyst, City of Durham: "5 years ago, I would’ve said that, in my career, I want people in power to listen to people, and I realized that that’s what I’m doing right now."
- Vania Andre, Editor in Chief, The Haitian Times: "Listening became our strategy. The project validated what our community has long felt but rarely sees reflected. It gave us a blueprint grounded in lived experience, and that’s shaping how we expand our coverage and community work."
- Jacquelyn Boggess, Chairperson, Madison, WI Police and Fire Commission: "Working with Cortico taught us that anecdotes and stories have information in them that is community input. It’s real and it’s valid."
- Sara Bishop, Founder, Reimagine Arkansas: "Cortico has supported us in making sense of the moment that we’re in, by offering … the ability to listen efficiently and economically, in a way that’s connected people across Arkansas."
- Asheesh Advani, CEO, Junior Achievement Worldwide: "Through Cortico, we’re able to efficiently and powerfully invite our community of youth around the world to inform our strategic direction. Cortico enables us to analyze and amplify youth voices and opinions from around the world in a way that traditional survey instruments and focus groups cannot do."
- Ceasar McDowell, MIT Professor of the Practice, Project Lead, RealTalk for Change Boston: "Cortico’s platform made it possible for us to address fundamental challenges in public engagement: building trust in marginalized communities to bring in their voices."
- Alia Stevenson, Chief Programs Officer, Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness: "The information that we collected with Cortico’s platform is so rich. It helps us illuminate data points in a different way, communicating through people’s stories and experiences."
- Dr. Becky J. Foley, Superintendent of Schools, RSU5 in Maine: "As we work to strengthen student voice in RSU 5, Cortico’s partnership has allowed our students to be empowered in leading positive change in their school culture in a way that is meaningful, collaborative and has led to increased student engagement."
- Rachel Tache, Qualitative Researcher at Child Poverty Action Lab: "Cortico tooling provides an engaging and intuitive mechanism for organizing, structuring, and interpreting rich narratives with efficiency … bolstering our capacity to identify shared goals and meaningful insights."
- Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University: "How may we redeem the elusive promise of self-government — amid digitally-amplified divisions and persistent barriers for so many to genuine participation? How encouraging to see Cortico’s unique integration of thoughtful convening, human listening, and technological tools to elicit and foreground the hopes and concerns of people who otherwise would not be heard."
- Jennifer Tufts, Project Manager, America Amplified: "Our journalists learning that facilitation skill was huge for us because it helped put community engagement in practice and supported a shift from traditional reporting towards really connecting with communities."
- Katie Dean, Executive Editor, Cap Times: "Having the ability to use this incredible technology is such a boost for us to think about new ways to report, to identify innovative ways to reach people and connect with new audiences."
Cortico is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization led by a multidisciplinary team of experts in community engagement, technology and non-profit management.