Ode Poetry uses Microsoft AI to suggest human-read poems to users

William Sieghart's Poetry Pharmacy inspired the creation of this tool, which offers users a poem based on their responses to 'empathetic questions.'

Ode Poetry is a new platform that leverages the power of artificial intelligence to recommend poems to users based on their responses to questions. The platform is a collaboration between William Sieghart, creator of Poetry Pharmacy, and Microsoft AI.

On July 9, 2026, Microsoft AI announced Ode Poetry. The platform asks users questions about how they are feeling and recommends a poem they might enjoy. It then plays a recording of the poem that is read by a real person. “AI simply supports the connection between the listener, the creativity of the original poem, and its human reader,” the announcement reads.

The project came to be thanks to William Sieghart, who is known for his work, Poetry Pharmacy. At events, listeners would tell Sieghart what’s on their mind, and then he would recommend a poem that seeks to meet them where they are.

We developed a harness to distill William’s years of experience with personal consultations into a system that can match the unstructured conversation with the user into a framework that enables the right poem to be recommended. This system included carefully chosen deterministic logic and tool-calling mechanisms.

It’s peculiar to take something dynamic like a conversation, which the above quote details as “unstructured,” and box it into a framework of “deterministic logic.” Though useful, and arguably a great use of AI, it seems at odds with the very human nature of Sieghart’s recommendations. On the other hand, Sieghart can only hold so many conversations.

Despite this clash, Sieghart notes that it has been his life’s ambition to bring poetry to everyone. Unfortunately, Ode Poetry is currently only available for users in the UK, United States, and Cananda. Stay tuned to our Artificial Intelligence page for the latest on the AI industry.

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