Noora

From first words to conversations,
Noora helps improve communication

Noora is a set of AI platforms geared towards a neurodiverse audience.

It provides a fun, safe place to practice specific areas of social communication, from functional first words to nuanced social conversation skills that are helpful in the development of friendships and relationships.

Developed by Stanford's Open Virtual Assistant Lab

Noora Social Conversations

Empirically validated with autistic adolescents and adults

An AI coach who guides you through diverse social scenarios. Get feedback on responding with empathy, relevant questions, and more.

Noora First Words

An interactive, safe app for reinforcing word vocalization attempts based on PRT

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Now Recruiting

We are recruiting parents who:

Have a child between the ages of 3–5 diagnosed with autism
Can use a mobile app with their child for approximately 4 weeks

Study participation includes:

Free app that incorporates the motivational components of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT)
No travel required — do everything from home!

For more info, contact Lizzie Ponder, MA, BCBA —

Study PI: Lynn Kern Koegel, PhD, CCC-SLP

Welcome to Noora

Noora is a set of AI programs developed and tested at Stanford University by the School of Medicine and Department of Computer Science. It is the only available conversational AI program with peer-reviewed evidence on its efficacy to improve social communication. Further research and testing is underway on social communication and first words learning. Noora has been endorsed and approved by neurodiverse adolescents and adults.

Research

Noora is based on face-to-face, empirically-validated support programs that resulted in improvements in social communication. It has been evaluated, and shown to be effective, with autistic adolescents and adults in a large randomized clinical trial, a study in a work internship setting, and additional small studies (in review).

With daily practice for just four weeks, Noora Social Conversation users have improved their conversation, and report improved confidence, and less anxiety in social situations.

We are currently testing Noora with a larger group of people. For this (beta) testing, we will not collect any personal information beyond your email, and your data will be reviewed in aggregate but would appreciate your feedback on the program.

Publications

Koegel, L.K., Ponder, E., Bruzzese, T., Wang, M., Semnani, S.J., Chi, N., Koegel, B.L., Lin, T.Y., Swarnakar, A., & Lam, M.S. "Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Empathetic Statements in Autistic Adolescents and Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (2025): 1-17.

Highlight: This randomized clinical trial study showed that adolescents and adults who used the AI program for only 4 weeks, 5 days per week, had significantly improved verbal empathy during generalized social conversation compared to a control group.
Koegel, Lynn K., Paul Wehman, Christopher M. Claude, Monica S. Lam, Tommy Bruzzese, Melanie Derry, Alissa Brooke et al. "Using Artificial Intelligence to Support Emotionally Responsive Verbal Communication Among Autistic Workers in a Work Internship Setting." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (2026): 1-14.

Highlight: The study showed that the Noora AI program was also effective in a work internship setting during work-related social conversation. In this study, we adjusted Noora slightly to accommodate users who have more challenges with communication.
Koegel, L.K., Ponder, E., Bruzzese, T., & Lam, M.S. "Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Question-Asking in Autistic Adolescents and Adults." Behavior Modification (2026).

Highlight: This study showed that using the AI program resulted in improvements in question-asking that also generalized to human social conversation.