Why Cortico?

A Better Way to Listen

The best of both small-group conversations and scale.

Despite the technologies that surround us, and sometimes because of them, it can be hard to actually hear and be heard.

And that lack of connection often spills over from the Internet into real spaces: Our neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.

Cortico offers a better way to listen. To better understand what your community – students, peers, colleagues, voters, citizens, neighbors, or stakeholders – really have to say.

How? The Cortico method combines the benefits of small-group conversations – the kind of face-to-face interactions people have turned to for thousands of years – with the advantages of a broader exchange of ideas and experiences.

We believe that, with a responsible balance of ancient wisdoms and modern technology, sincerity and scale can work together.

Interdisciplinary Expertise

Cortico is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded and led by MIT Professor Deb Roy and an expert team of technologists, community organizers, and qualitative researchers – with over 300 partners putting our methods into practice.

In cooperation with MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication, Cortico has refined an approach that blends human-centered design, responsible technology, and collaborative listening.

Through this work, lived experience becomes shared understanding — turning real conversations into insight and action — empowering young people to lead through listening; informing journalism rooted in community voices; helping businesses better understand their customers and communities; enabling local decision-makers to make more informed choices; and creating a channel for foundations to hear real needs from the communities they serve.

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

Beyond the Traditional Toolkit

Town halls, surveys, and focus groups have long been essential to organizations large and small – but they can also make it hard to encourage genuine interaction and amplify real voices.

Cortico offers a new alternative, or a complement, to this legacy toolkit: scalable, measurable qualitative research based on authentic inputs. We help your community, organization, or company harness the power of recorded, small-group dialogue to build a new kind of conversation. To understand – and act upon – what might otherwise go unheard.

And Cortico’s collaborative listening approach puts the power of interpretation into the hands of your own community members.

How it works

Cortico’s approach follows a simple arc: Talk, Understand, Share.

  1. Small-group conversations surface lived experience.
  2. Human-led, AI-assisted analysis surfaces patterns and insight.
  3. Voice-powered outputs extend what was heard beyond the room.

What foundation support makes possible

Carnegie Corporation of New York

Carnegie Corporation of New York partnered with Cortico to support a cohort of education equity organizations in listening to immigrant and low-income families across the country. The project generated field-level insight grounded in lived experience, helping educators and policymakers better understand how families access and use information to support their children.

Cortico Highlight

Katie, September 9, 2021:

"I think I personally, and I feel a lot of people feel mistrust of institutions... having intermediaries that are reviewed as trustworthy can be really helpful in people trusting the system."

Cortico on Campus

With support from The Rockefeller Foundation, Cortico launched Cortico on Campus: a national student fellowship equipping young leaders to design and lead small-group conversations on campuses across the country. The program builds durable listening infrastructure in higher education, training students to turn peer dialogue into shared insight and voice-powered outputs.

AI to Support, Not Replace

Cortico’s AI is human-steered—no pushbutton shortcuts. Our tools ensure insights stay grounded in real voices and local knowledge. Unlike AI that digests and summarizes human speech, Cortico’s voice-first, people-led approach helps communities surface, share, and act on their own narratives.

Our Vision

Cortico’s vision is to become the platform and method for:

  • Surfacing underheard voices rather than the loudest
  • Highlighting shared experiences rather than battling opinions
  • Promoting connection rather than misunderstanding and division.

Connect with our Chief Program Officer

Reach out to Alex Kelly Berman, Cortico Chief Program Officer.