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Dialog Lab is a new app built on a simple premise: most people want to talk to someone who disagrees with them, they just don't know where to find that person, or they're afraid of what it might cost them. The app matches users with someone who sees a topic differently, lets the conversation happen asynchronously over messaging instead of demanding a scheduled call, and uses AI moderation that blocks abuse without ever weighing in on who's right.
The app grew out of founder Spencer Frank's own experience. A year ago, the same week Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Spencer realized he'd never actually had a real conversation with anyone who supported Kirk's views — despite having people like that in his own life. He found Braver Angels' one-on-one matching program — full disclosure, the organization Wilk works for — and used it himself. It worked, but it was slow. That gap became the seed for Dialog Lab.
Spencer and Wilk dig into the design choices behind the app: why conversations are anonymous but verified, why there's no audience, no likes, and no upvotes to reward saying something inflammatory, and how the AI moderator draws the line between a heated opinion and an abusive one. One story from the platform stands out — an Iranian-American user who supported U.S. intervention in Iran, afraid to even say so in his own community, found someone on Dialog Lab willing to actually hear him out. Being heard, he told Spencer, changed how he felt about speaking up at all — which is the whole premise of what the app is trying to do.
Key Themes
• The barrier to dialogue is rarely desire — it's access and risk. People want these conversations; what stops them is not knowing where to find someone, or fearing what it might cost them with friends, family, or their job.
• Removing the audience changes the conversation. No likes, no upvotes, no one watching — Dialog Lab is built on the idea that the incentive to perform is what makes online disagreement ugly.
• Anonymity can lower the wall without removing accountability. Verified users and an AI moderator that blocks abuse — not disagreement — let people speak freely without the platform turning into a free-for-all.
• Dialogue is a first step, not the finish line. Dialog Lab is framed as a way to rebuild the civic muscle for harder work down the line — in-person meetings, community involvement, actually working across difference.
Takeaways
• You don't need a scheduled Zoom call or an in-person meetup to start. Dialog Lab is built for conversations that happen in ten-minute windows, spread across days.
• The AI moderator doesn't referee opinions — it blocks abuse and flags personal labels, but it lets people actually disagree.
• Dialog Lab launches on the App Store September 24th. Learn more at joindialoglab.com.
Spencer Frank is the founder of Dialog Lab. His engineering career goes back to 2009, when he was still an intern; he earned his PhD in mechanical engineering in 2017 and spent the following eight years in the medical device industry before leaving, a year ago, to build Dialog Lab full-time.
Learn more about and connect with Spencer:
Website: joindialoglab.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencertfrank/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joindialoglab/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61593210993278
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