Negotiating with an AI? Of course, Maya Ben Dror says: „It will be a gamechanger. New research shows AI reduces nearly all the human biases in negotiations.” A digital counterpart will focus on the verbal content of a conversation, while humans are always influenced by the non-verbal context, like tone, body language, facial expressions or smells. “Only 7 % of the information in a conversation is verbal”, Ben Dror explains, the Israeli-Finnish co-founder of the AI start-up Complex Chaos. And by sticking to the verbal content compiled with context and sentiment analysis – AI increases trust: “Studies indicate that people are 30 % more transparent when they interact with an AI that does not give them all of these non-verbal cues.”
The founding team Maya Ben Dror and Tomy LorschComplex Chaos claims that it can speed up alignment and improve collaboration results by placing AI at the table. Especially for complex cooperation with a multitude of stakeholders, AI may save 90 % of the time and effort spent on gathering information, engaging, and aligning stakeholders.
And engaging and aligning in complex environments will be common stuff for the transformative processes ahead of us in many industries and communities. From re-purposing city spaces for new forms of urbanity to the construction of wind parks or power-lines in the energy industry to fair and sustainable supply chains, there's an endless number of complex negotiation cases where time and trust are critical issue. At GDI’s next 21th European Trend Day on 12 March 2025, Ben Dror will show how AI can contribute to get deals done – and also to get deals right.
How to bring a rainforest to the negotiation table
The main topic Complex Chaos is working on right now is in the field of international politics: climate change. “We can’t afford again to spend 10 years negotiating the next Paris Agreement” says founder and CEO, Tomy Lorsch, who suffered wildfires in his own backyard in California when thousands of his neighbors and friends lost everything to the fires. For the Global Climate Summit in Baku in November 2024, they (and their AI) collaborated with the group of African states to find common ground for the negotiations on funding for climate change prevention and mitigation. Building on its recently announced participation in an Amazon forest collaboration, Maya Ben Dror is expecting the start-up to play an even bigger role in the 2025 Climate Summit in Belém (Brazil).
One of her targets: to also give non-humans a seat at the negotiation table: “We can build and operate an agent for Lac Leman or for the Amazon rainforest that knows everything about how these natural habitats operate and proactively contribute information and guidance about their needs and their condition.” Whether this way nature will only get a voice, or also a vote, or even a veto power, will depend on the issue and on the overall rules of the negotiation.
Be part of the next Trend Day on 12 March: "Highway to Heaven? How AI Transforms Society and Work".