TP’s NICER Habermas Machine

We are developing the NICER Habermas machine ….SO COOL

I guess I am somewhat of a negotiation professional and proud to be an Alumnus of the Harvard Strategic Negotiations programme created by James K. (“Jim”) Sebenius, the Gordon Donaldson Professor at Harvard Business School. Following that experience, as a commercial exec in the media world I became reasonably fluent in the process of creating multi-party agreements.

I transitioned from being a commercial exec to lecturing in Sales and Negotiation at Kingston Business School, Kingston University in London. This is where I met our (genius) Director of Intelligent Systems, data and behavioural scientist, economist, former eBay exec and academic Johannes Castner.

By way of background, we can probably agree that collectively, humans, bless us, struggle with speedy decision-making. Yes, there is too much data to get up to speed with, conflicting priorities, and the ever-present risk of a person hijacking the agenda to explore their current rabbit hole.

We have created the basis of a new software system and API, that brings together human purpose, the inclusive genius of Collective Intelligence (CI) and a bunch of bespoke AI agents. Also in creating the code, we are drawing heavily on our experience of deal making – that teaches us people are much more likely to agree at the level of values and interests. Unlike many people, NICER quickly finds out what people care about.

NICER is an acronym of Nimble, Impartial, Consensus-Engendering Resource! Basically a software product/API that uniquely blends AI agent-driven insights with human expertise, to create faster, more harmonious decision-making. Imagine an AI-powered assistant that sifts through mountains of data, tests hypotheses on human behavior (using oTree experiments), and presents known facts and suggested ideas in real-time. The result? Fewer deadlocks, more clarity, and less time spent debating things that don’t matter. It taps into LLM’s that instantly read organisational paperwork, digest strategic papers, regulatory frameworks, news and social media commentary, plus freely and legitimately available, peer reviewed academic papers in order to feedback in real time.

Building on some solid behavioural science research, the expectation is the consensus-building software system can work with comms platforms like Slack, to help teams focus on critical, contemporaneous issues and make a contribution. Analysing Collective Intelligence forums we discover that many organisations are leveraging AI-driven CI, to enjoy a boost in KPI performance, innovation speed, and employee engagement.

We are doing this to contribute to an innovative ecosystem that is currently driven by Innovate UK and UKRI, that’s improving productivity, engendering sustainable growth and ultimately regenerating communities across the UK. Next time you find yourself stuck in a slow decisional process, remember: the future belongs to those who think smarter together.