Robert Ambrogi Blog
I have had a strong interest in online dispute resolution ever since at least 1996, when I wrote what I was later told was the first published article about ODR, Cyberspace Becomes Forum for Resolving Disputes. I was so curious about the concept that, in 1999, I put that interest to work, becoming a mediator for SquareTrade, the ODR platform pioneered by University of Massachusetts professor Ethan Katsh that was eBay’s original dispute resolution forum, before it built its own.
Yet, as much as I have been a proponent of ODR, I have also written about its lukewarm adoption over the years. In a 2016 post, I asked, Is There a Future for Online Dispute Resolution for Lawyers?, in which I reviewed ODR’s slow adoption, but suggested that recent developments at the time foretold a possible turning point for ODR.
If that was so in 2016, it is even more so now, as the pandemic and advances in technology have made us all more comfortable with handling our affairs online. Now there are various ODR companies, including Bot Mediation, Immediation, and New Era ADR, and even the 100-year-old American Arbitration Association is getting into the game with its recent launch of an AI-powered arbitrator for construction disputes.
Against this backdrop, the company Dyspute.ai today launched version 2 of Adri, its AI-powered, asynchronous mediation platform that is designed to make dispute resolution available around the clock without the scheduling constraints of traditional mediation.
While the New Hampshire company first launched Adri last year, it says it has completely rebuilt this new version from the ground up based on feedback from initial users.
The company is positioning the platform as a lower-cost alternative tier for existing mediation providers while also pursuing partnerships to embed AI mediation directly into legal agreements as a first-stop dispute resolution mechanism. The company also expects consumers to use the platform directly.
Complete Platform Rebuild
In an interview yesterday, Renee Jackson, founder and CEO, said that Adri v2 represents a full rebuild of Dyspute.ai’s beta platform, which launched in March 2025.
The company originally built its beta on a no-code platform, to expedite testing and gather user feedback. Based on that feedback, Jackson said, the company decided to rebuild the entire platform from scratch as a fully coded solution.
Jackson, who has practiced law for almost 20 years both as outside and in-house counsel, and who also teaches negotiation and conflict management to business students at the University of New Hampshire, developed the platform to address inefficiencies she observed in traditional mediation.
“I love mediation. I’ve used it successfully over my career to resolve disputes early before too much time and money and energy is invested,” she said. “But over the years, I’ve also realized how expensive it is and how inefficient it can be where you’re locked into a nine-to-five schedule.
“First you have to battle over picking the mediator, then you have to battle over calendars, and then, on the day of, there’s a lot of waiting around for the mediator to come back and forth.”
How It Works
The platform operates asynchronously by default, using notifications to alert parties when action is required, rather than requiring them to participate simultaneously in real time. The mediation process unfolds in several stages:
Adaptive Intake: Parties engage in a chat-based intake process with Adri, which asks customized follow-up questions based on responses. Behind the scenes, Adri has a set of required questions but tailors the actual text and examples to each specific dispute. Parties can upload existing demand letters or mediation briefs to expedite the process. Users can also select an avatar for Adri’s appearance.
Summary Exchange: After completing intake, each party reviews and can revise a summary that Adri generates from their chat. These summaries are then exchanged between the parties to ensure both understand the dispute from each perspective.
AI-Generated Proposals: Once both parties complete intake, Adri generates the first settlement proposal based on both intake chats. This feature is designed to eliminate what Jackson described as the “gamesmanship that often happens at the beginning of a mediation, where it’s, ‘You make the first offer,’ ‘No, you make the first offer.’ Adri kicks off the process just to give the user something to react to.”
Negotiation Rounds: Parties can accept or reject proposals and provide confidential feedback to Adri explaining their reasoning. The other party sees the vote but not the feedback. In each round, users can choose to continue reacting to Adri’s proposals, revise a previous proposal, or make AI-assisted direct offers to each other.
The platform includes what Jackson calls a “refine with Adri” feature for direct offers. If a party drafts a direct offer that includes inflammatory language, Adri will tone it down, removing hostile language while preserving the factual content.
“One of the great things about Adri is you can literally rage type at her and she will just kind of calm it down and take the factual nugget or whatever it is you’re trying to convey and take the emotion out of it,” Jackson said.
Virtual Mediation Room: Parties access a secure virtual space to review proposal history, shared documents, feedback, and offers. The process continues for up to 15 proposals over seven days, with everything notification-based to allow parties to respond on their own schedules.
Settlement and Payment: If parties reach agreement, the platform can generate a settlement agreement with AI-assisted editing capabilities. A basic settlement agreement with e-signatures is included in the standard pricing, with upgrades available for more robust editing features. Parties can also process settlement payments directly through the platform via Stripe integration.
Evolving Target Market
Dyspute.ai’s understanding of its ideal customer has shifted since the beta launch. While the company initially pursued a business-to-consumer model, Jackson said, months of conversations with potential customers revealed a different opportunity.
The company realized that its ideal customer profile, at least initially, is existing mediation providers. While she initially thought they would be competitive, she realized many of them have an interest in a lower tier of mediation that can be offered as a low cost first stop.
She pointed to organizations such as the Better Business Bureau, the Bar Association of San Francisco, and community mediation centers that struggle to find enough human mediators to offer services at scale and at affordable prices.
“We could be a tool for those types of providers to offer an AI mediation low-cost alternative,” she said.
For mediation providers, Dyspute.ai offers a separate workflow from its consumer-facing model, in which the provider can create cases, invite parties, and have access to a dashboard to track progress in real time.
This dashboard provides a view of the virtual mediation room with additional information not visible to the parties, such as confidential feedback and detailed intake responses. Mediators or administrators can monitor whether cases are stalled and insert themselves as needed.
The platform is best for smaller, two-party disputes involving less than $25,000, Jackson said, such as small claims cases and many employer-employee disputes.
“This is for disputes that often go on unpursued and unresolved,” she said.
Strategic Partnerships
Accompanying today’s v2 launch, Dyspute.ai announced partnerships with 9to5 Docs and New Era ADR designed to embed AI mediation into startup legal agreements from the outset.
Through the 9to5 Docs partnership, Dyspute.ai becomes the default mediation provider in that company’s startup legal agreements that include dispute resolution provisions. If mediation through Dyspute.ai does not result in settlement, disputes then move to arbitration with New Era ADR, creating what Jackson described as a “clear, pre-defined resolution pathway before conflicts ever arise.”
Marla Miller, founder and CEO at 9to5 Docs, said in the announcement: “Most contracts still push parties toward court or legacy arbitration models that are slow, expensive, and disconnected from how modern businesses operate.
“By integrating AI-led mediation as the first step in our contracts, our partnership with Dyspute.ai creates a smarter, more efficient resolution pathway – one that prioritizes early settlement while preserving a streamlined path to arbitration services with New Era ADR when needed.”
Bias Prevention and Confidentiality
Jackson emphasized that the platform is not intended to replace human mediators but to expand access to mediation for people who cannot currently afford it. She said the company has invested significant effort in training Adri, particularly for the v2 release.
While that includes training on settlement examples and mediation standards of conduct, it also includes specific training on bias prevention, Jackson said. The AI has been instructed not to take into account demographic or socioeconomic information about users.
Regarding confidentiality, Jackson said the company has implemented multiple safeguards. First, Dyspute.ai has chosen large language models that do not train on user data. “That was first and foremost the most important thing for me as a lawyer and for our users,” she said.
The platform clearly communicates to users when information will be shared with the other party and when it will remain confidential. Shared documents, intake summaries after revision, and votes on proposals are visible to both parties.
However, feedback explaining why a party accepted or rejected a proposal remains confidential, visible only to Adri and to any human mediator monitoring the case through the provider dashboard.
Adri’s Pricing
Adri v2 is now live at a base price of $299 per mediation, which includes a basic settlement agreement with e-signatures and AI-generated language. Users can upgrade for enhanced editing features. The platform offers flexible payment options and enterprise subscription tiers for mediation providers.
Dyspute.ai is also launching a pilot program offering discounted pricing to early adopters in exchange for feedback on the platform and input on future feature development. Mediation providers, businesses, and organizations interested in AI-led mediation can visit Dyspute.ai or contact info@dyspute.ai to request a demo.
Addressing ODR Challenges
Going back to the beginning of this post, I asked Jackson about the challenges ODR platforms have historically faced.
She acknowledged challenges exist – including simply getting uptake from both parties to a dispute – but she pointed to evidence suggesting younger users may be more receptive to AI-mediated dispute resolution.
Jackson, who, as I mentioned above, also teaches negotiations at the University of New Hampshire, conducted an exercise last year with her students comparing human versus AI mediation.
“Seven groups of students worked with a human mediator, seven worked with an AI mediator. Same facts pattern for the dispute,” she said. “A lot of the students, who are obviously younger, had a preference for using an AI mediator.”
“Folks who are younger potentially want this first before they have to go to a human because they don’t want to talk on the phone, they don’t want to interact with humans. They just want to interact with their phone and try to resolve something that way.”