Town hall with an AI avatar: who raises the objection?

01Objection

The anonymous question, asked out loud

At many town halls, the awkward question goes unasked, because someone would have to ask it by name and in front of everyone. With an AI avatar on stage, it takes a different route. Employees submit their questions to you anonymously beforehand. You write whatever comes up most often into the briefing as an objection. On stage, the moderator calls on the AI avatar, and it raises it.

For example, at a made-up town hall, translated from the German (Albert’s opener “Also.” means roughly “well”):

The answer goes to all of field sales. Whoever submitted the question stays in their seat like everyone else.

02Briefing

Who writes his objections?

You write the briefing: the topic, who is on stage and which position it argues. From the submitted questions, you pick the objections it should raise. Carry over the objection, not the question word for word. A detail that fits only one person, such as a team of three, tells the room who asked. The edge can stay. On stage it disagrees and takes a stand, including on leadership’s answer if the moderator asks it about that.

Leadership may read the briefing in advance. That takes little away from the objection, since they still have to answer in front of the whole staff.

03Characters

What leadership presents decides the character

For a town hall, we recommend Albert, Vera or Ken. Tina, the explainer, is a weaker fit here. At a town hall, leadership does its own explaining, and what the room needs from the AI avatar is the objection.

• Decision still open

  Albert

  A decision is still up for debate, such as a reorganization or a new location. He takes the opposing position.

• Targets without a source

  Vera

  For leadership’s targets and key figures when nobody in the room knows where they come from. She asks for the evidence.

• Affected, not in the room

  Ken

  A decision affects teams or sites that are not in the room. Your briefing sets whose view he speaks for.

04Swiss German

Your staff speaks Swiss German, the AI avatar does not

At a town hall in German-speaking Switzerland, leadership and staff often talk in Swiss German. None of our AI avatars understands it. They work in standard German, for now without English as well, and this is the limit to plan for before any other.

The part of the town hall with the AI avatar therefore runs in standard German: the moderator’s cue, its objection and the leadership answer it is meant to respond to. If the CEO has just walked through the quarterly figures in Swiss German, she switches to standard German for her answer to it. Before and after, people can speak Swiss German, but it cannot pick up on anything said in Swiss German later.

05Floor questions

Questions from the floor: microphone or moderator?

By default, the AI avatar only hears the stage: the moderator’s microphone on a channel of its own, the other stage microphones through an aux send. So it hears whatever leadership answers on stage. A comment from the floor reaches it only if your sound team puts a floor microphone on that aux send.

At a town hall in German-speaking Switzerland, that helps little, since people in the room mostly ask in Swiss German. We suggest going through the moderator instead, who repeats the question in standard German with the avatar’s name in front, or types it on the tablet. Each time this takes a moment, so when many people want to speak, only a selection goes to it.

For your staff, the choice has a second side. Whatever someone says into a floor microphone on the send is transcribed in the cloud and then sits in the transcript on our laptop. The language model in the cloud that formulates its answers gets the text as well. If the question goes through the moderator, only the moderator’s version ends up in it. Tell your staff before the event which route applies.

06Stop

What may the moderator stop him for?

The moderator reads its objection on the tablet before the room hears it and can cut it off. At a town hall, the whole staff sees that happen. It quickly looks as if leadership did not want to hear the objection.

So agree with leadership on what counts as a reason to stop before you collect the questions. One reason would be an objection that still lets the room tell who submitted the question. An uncomfortable objection is not. Put this agreement in the call for questions you send to staff. Anyone who submits a question anonymously then knows the objection will not be cut off mid-sentence just because leadership finds it unpleasant.