AI Policy

AI is welcome at DemocracyNext, but human judgement remains central. Every output has to be reviewed, verified, and owned by a team member before it goes anywhere.

More specifically, the policy covers:

• Ongoing learning and experimentation - the policy foregrounds the spirit with which we’re approaching AI: open-minded, experimental, and intentional. We have regular internal sharing sessions to discuss what we’re each doing.
• Which tools we use - including Claude for research and writing, NotebookLM for deep research, dembrane for workshop support, and Elicit and Consensus for academic literature. Each has a defined scope.
• What AI can and can't do - AI can help us refine, edit, and stress-test our thinking, but it shouldn't produce first drafts of research or thought leadership.
• Data protection - we never upload personal data of citizens' assembly participants, confidential funder communications, or anything shared under NDA.
• Meetings - we don't allow third-party AI note-takers into group meetings by default, and always ask permission before recording.
• Voice - DemocracyNext has a distinctive voice: direct, values-led, and practitioner-grounded. The policy is explicit that AI use must not dilute it.

We’ve also added a section on AI agents - tools capable of more autonomous, complex workflows - which we're beginning to explore carefully, with clear rules on permissions and recovery options before anything is deployed at scale.

Why publish it?

When we first started talking about creating an AI policy, we looked around for examples from organisations like ours. There weren’t many. Most AI policies that exist are tucked away internally, or written for large corporations in very different contexts, which are inaccessible on many levels!

We think that’s a missed opportunity - especially for organisations working in the democracy and civil society space, where questions of trust, transparency, and power are at the core of what we do.

We drew some inspiration from some that felt relevant, like Watershed in Bristol and New_Public. Our starting point was a long list of questions that we spent 3 to 4 hours discussing as a team, recording the conversation, and using the transcript as the starting point for our written document.

We’re also aware that this isn’t the finished piece. The policy will be reviewed at least every quarter, and probably more often as the field shifts. But we’d rather share an honest, working document than wait for a perfect one.

If you have thoughts, feedback, or want to share your own organisation’s approach, we’d love to hear from you.