AI Spar

Help & FAQ ← Back to app

AI Spar asks your question to multiple AI models simultaneously, finds where they disagree, runs structured debate rounds between them, then produces a balanced synthesis. You get a richer, more trustworthy answer than any single model can give.

Getting Started

  1. Type your questionType it in the text box and press Ask. No sign-in required for your first two questions.
  2. Watch the debate unfoldEach AI model responds, the Analyzer identifies disagreements, and debaters argue their positions over one or more rounds.
  3. Read the final synthesisA summary of where models agreed, where they disagreed, and how (or whether) disagreements were resolved.
  4. Ask follow-up questionsType in the follow-up box that appears after the first answer. Follow-ups stay in the same conversation context.
Tip: Questions that have a clear factual answer (e.g. "What is the capital of France?") won't produce much debate. AI Spar shines on nuanced, contested, or multifaceted questions — policy, science, strategy, or "it depends" topics.

The Settings Panel

Click the icon (top right on mobile) or look to the right-hand sidebar on desktop to access settings. The lower sections of the panel are collapsed by default — click any section header to expand it.

Max Rounds

How many debate rounds to run per disagreement (1–5). More rounds give models more chances to rebut each other but cost more and take longer. 2 rounds is a good default.

Grounded (web search)

When enabled, each model can search the web before answering. Useful for questions about recent events, current prices, or anything that may have changed since a model's training cutoff. Adds a small per-query fee to each model's cost.

Targeted verification

Targeted verification is available only for signed-in Grounded debates. It uses the verifier selected in the sidebar to investigate qualifying narrow current factual inputs—such as a fixture, a published probability, a ranking, or odds—when sources are non-inspectable, secondary, conflicting, or stale. It prefers first-party sources and never adjudicates a future prediction. No verifier call is made when no claim qualifies, which is normal.

When it runs, targeted verification adds incremental verifier-model and web-search cost. Its returned material is evidence supplied to the debate, not a final verdict. When a grounded result explicitly links a cited secondary article to a cited primary article, the verifier can make one bounded follow-up to that exact article. It never guesses publisher pages or treats a successful fetch as proof. Debate-visible verification status, outcome, finding, and confidence labels follow the question's language (for example, Chinese questions see Chinese labels). Operator, admin, API, and stored evidence semantics remain canonical. If the core evidence is inspectable but a material qualifier or that primary check remains unresolved, the displayed finding may be mostly supportive with limited confidence; the canonical verdict remains inconclusive.

Model Selection (click to expand)

Debaters

The AI models that answer your question and debate each other. You can add up to 5 debaters across any combination of providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini) and models. Click + Add Debater to add one, or the on a card to remove it.

Analyzer

A separate AI model whose sole job is to compare debater answers, identify disagreements, and determine whether a concession has occurred in each round. The Analyzer is not one of the debaters.

Signed-in model availability

When you are signed in, the model picker refreshes from /api/models/{provider} using the effective inference key, including your Anthropic BYOK key when one is saved. OpenAI choices are gpt-5.4-nano, gpt-5.4-mini, gpt-5.6-luna, gpt-5.6-terra, and gpt-5.6-sol. Anthropic choices are claude-haiku-4-5-20251001, claude-sonnet-5, claude-opus-4-8, and claude-fable-5. claude-sonnet-5 is the default verifier. gpt-5.6-luna and gpt-5.6-sol are hidden until the effective OpenAI key advertises each model. Anthropic models unavailable to the effective key are also omitted. Discovery results are filtered to this selectable catalog as well as models with application pricing.

Note: If model discovery is unavailable, AI Spar falls back to the curated catalog: gpt-5.4-nano, gpt-5.4-mini, and gpt-5.6-terra for OpenAI, plus the four Anthropic choices above. A saved hidden or unavailable model is replaced with the provider default (or the first available curated option).

AI Provider API Keys (click to expand)

If you have your own API keys for Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google Gemini, you can store them in AI Spar. When set, your key is used for that provider's models — we do not charge you for those models, and they don't count toward the system fee either. Models from providers where you haven't set a key are charged at actual cost plus the system fee. If you have API keys for all providers in the debate, only the $0.03 base system fee is charged.

To add a key: sign in, open the Settings panel, expand AI Provider API Keys, click Edit next to the provider, paste your key, and click Save. Your keys are encrypted before being stored and never transmitted to the browser.

File Attachments

Click 📎 Attach below the question box to attach images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP) or PDF documents. Up to 3 files, 20 MB each. All debaters and the Analyzer will receive the attachment alongside your question.

Attachments are stored temporarily for 1 hour — enough to complete a debate and any follow-ups before they are deleted.

Signing In

You can try AI Spar without an account — anonymous users get 2 free questions using the cheapest models from each of the three providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google).

Sign in with Google to unlock:

Billing

How charges work

AI Spar charges after each question completes, not upfront. The charge is:

A cost estimate is shown below the question box before you click Ask. The estimate uses typical token averages — actual cost varies with question length and complexity.

Adding funds

Click Add Funds in the sidebar to top up your balance via Stripe. Minimum top-up is $5. Funds do not expire.

Model pricing (approximate)

Token rates below are per 1 million tokens. Input and output tokens are charged at their respective rates; cached input uses the cache-read rate. Anthropic cache creation uses the cache-write rate shown below. OpenAI cache writes have no separate charge.

ModelProviderInputOutputCache readCache write
claude-opus-4-8Anthropic$5.00$25.00$0.50$6.25
claude-fable-5Anthropic$10.00$50.00$1.00$12.50
gpt-5.6-solOpenAI$5.00$30.00$0.50
gpt-5.6-terraOpenAI$2.50$15.00$0.25
gpt-5.6-lunaOpenAI$1.00$6.00$0.10
ModelProviderApprox. cost per debate*
gpt-5.4-nanoOpenAI$0.05–0.15
gemini-3.1-flash-liteGoogle$0.05–0.20
claude-haiku-4-5-20251001Anthropic$0.10–0.30
gpt-5.4-miniOpenAI$0.10–0.30
gemini-3-flash-previewGoogle$0.15–0.50
gemini-3.5-flashGoogle$0.40–1.50
claude-sonnet-5Anthropic$0.40–1.20
gemini-3.1-pro-previewGoogle$0.80–2.50
claude-opus-4-8Anthropic$1.00–3.00
claude-fable-5Anthropic$2.00–6.00
gpt-5.6-solOpenAI$0.80–2.50
gpt-5.6-terraOpenAI$0.40–1.20
gpt-5.6-lunaOpenAI$0.20–0.60

* Per-model estimate for a 2-round debate. Includes all rounds and the system fee. Varies with question length. Grounding adds extra. Legacy models retained in historical conversation records still use their recorded pricing, but are not selectable.

Conversation History

When signed in, every completed debate is automatically saved. Click History in the sidebar to browse past conversations. Click any conversation to reload it and ask follow-up questions.

To bookmark, rename, export, share, or delete a conversation, use the menu (or right-click on desktop / long-press on mobile). Use the Bookmarked filter to find saved debates.

Sharing a conversation

Click ⋮ → Share link on any saved conversation. AI Spar generates a permanent public URL (e.g. aispar.app/share/…) and copies it to your clipboard. Anyone with the link can view the full question, synthesis, and debate details — no sign-in required. Sharing is read-only; viewers cannot interact with or continue the conversation.

Note: Share links are permanent once created. If you later delete a conversation, the share link will show "not found".

API & CLI Access

AI Spar can be used programmatically — from scripts, pipelines, or the command line — using personal access tokens. No browser required.

Step 1 — Generate a token

Sign in, open the Settings panel, scroll to AI Spar API Tokens, enter a label (e.g. my-script), and click Generate. Copy the token immediately — it is only shown once.

Step 2 — Download and use the aispar CLI

The CLI is a single Python 3 script with no dependencies. Download it once and run it anywhere.

# Download
curl -O https://aispar.app/aispar && chmod +x aispar

# Set your token (add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc to persist)
export AISPAR_TOKEN=aispar_...

CLI commands

All commands output JSON by default (suitable for scripts and pipelines). Add --text for human-readable output.

ask — Run a multi-LLM debate and return the synthesis

# Ask a question — outputs JSON by default
./aispar ask "Is nuclear power safe?"

# Pipe the synthesis into jq
./aispar ask "Is nuclear power safe?" | jq .synthesis

# Human-readable streaming output
./aispar ask "Is nuclear power safe?" --text

# More rounds, custom models
./aispar ask "Is nuclear power safe?" --rounds 3 \
  --providers gemini:gemini-3.5-flash anthropic:claude-sonnet-5 \
  --analyzer openai:gpt-5.4-mini

JSON response from ask:

{
  "question": "Is nuclear power safe?",
  "synthesis": "## Summary\n...",
  "charged_usd": 0.382,
  "model_cost_usd": 0.32,
  "system_fee_usd": 0.062,
  "rounds_completed": 2
}

balance — Show your current account balance

./aispar balance
./aispar balance --text     # Balance: $1.10

estimate — Estimate cost before running a debate

./aispar estimate --text
./aispar estimate --rounds 3 \
  --providers gemini:gemini-3.5-flash anthropic:claude-sonnet-5 \
  --analyzer anthropic:claude-sonnet-5 \
  --text

history — List your saved conversations

./aispar history --text
./aispar history --limit 5 --text

conversation — Show rounds and synthesis for a specific conversation

# Get the ID from `aispar history`
./aispar conversation <id> --text

tokens — Manage personal access tokens

./aispar tokens list --text
./aispar tokens create my-script --text
./aispar tokens revoke <token-id> --text

Step 3 — Or call the REST API directly

Pass your token as a Bearer header. The debate endpoint streams Server-Sent Events — set Accept: text/event-stream.

# Check your balance
curl https://aispar.app/api/user/balance \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AISPAR_TOKEN"

# Run a debate (streams SSE events)
curl -N "https://aispar.app/api/debate" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AISPAR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Accept: text/event-stream" \
  -G \
  --data-urlencode "question=Is nuclear power safe?" \
  --data-urlencode 'providers=[{"type":"gemini","model":"gemini-3.5-flash","name":"gemini gemini-3.5-flash"},{"type":"anthropic","model":"claude-sonnet-5","name":"anthropic claude-sonnet-5"}]' \
  --data-urlencode 'analyzer={"type":"anthropic","model":"claude-sonnet-5","name":"anthropic claude-sonnet-5"}' \
  --data-urlencode "rounds=2"

Key API endpoints

EndpointMethodDescription
/api/debateGETRun a debate. Streams SSE. Requires Accept: text/event-stream.
/api/user/balanceGETReturns your current balance in USD.
/api/user/tokensGET / POST / DELETEList, create, or revoke access tokens.
/api/conversationsGETList your saved conversations.
/api/conversations/{id}GETFetch a specific conversation with all rounds.
/api/conversations/{id}/sharePOSTGenerate (or retrieve) a public share token for a conversation.
/api/share/{token}GETFetch a shared conversation by token. No authentication required.
/api/estimate-costPOSTEstimate cost before running a debate.
Authentication: Pass your token as Authorization: Bearer aispar_... or X-Api-Key: aispar_.... Tokens have full account access — treat them like passwords and do not share them.

Tips for Better Results

FAQ

Why do the models sometimes all agree?

On questions with a well-established consensus answer, models trained on similar data tend to give similar responses. AI Spar will note the consensus and skip the debate phase. This is useful information — it signals the question is not genuinely contested among current AI models.

What does "concession" mean?

A concession happens when one model, after reading the other's rebuttal, acknowledges that the other argument is stronger and updates its position. The Analyzer detects concessions using both keyword matching and an LLM judgement call. When a concession is detected, that debate thread ends early and the winning argument is recorded.

How is the Analyzer different from the Debaters?

Debaters answer your question and argue positions. The Analyzer never takes a position — its job is to compare answers, extract points of disagreement, judge whether rebuttals constitute concessions, and write the final synthesis. Using a separate model for this role reduces bias and avoids the debaters grading their own work.

Is my data private?

Your questions are sent to the AI provider APIs you select (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google). Each provider's own data and privacy policies apply to the content you send them. AI Spar stores your question, the model responses, and the synthesis in its database, associated with your Google account if you're signed in. API keys you store via BYOK are encrypted before being saved.

Why is my balance not enough to run a debate?

AI Spar checks your balance against a pre-flight cost estimate before starting. If the estimate exceeds your balance, the request is blocked. The estimate is conservative (intentionally slightly high). Either top up your balance with Add Funds, choose cheaper models, reduce the number of rounds, or add BYOK keys for the expensive providers.

Can I use AI Spar in languages other than English?

Yes — just type your question in any language. All major models handle Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, and many others well. The debate and synthesis will typically be in the same language as your question.

What happens if a model times out or errors?

If a model fails to respond within the timeout window (120 seconds by default), it is excluded from that round and a note is added to the debate record. If enough models succeed to continue, the debate proceeds. You are not charged for a debate that fails entirely before producing a result.

I accidentally closed the tab. Can I get my results back?

If you're signed in, completed debates are saved automatically and accessible from the History panel. If you closed the tab while a debate was still running, the debate continues on the server — reload the page and click the same conversation in History to reconnect and see the results when they're ready.

What are the model name prefixes (gpt-5.6, gemini-3, claude-sonnet…)?

These are the model identifiers used by each provider's API. As a rough guide:

  • flash-lite / nano / mini / haiku — cheapest, fastest, good for simple tasks
  • flash / mini / sonnet — mid-tier, best quality-to-cost ratio for most questions
  • sol / opus / fable — advanced options for nuanced, technical, or unusually demanding work
How do I get an Anthropic / OpenAI / Google API key for BYOK?

Sign up at each provider's developer platform:

  • Anthropic: console.anthropic.com → API Keys
  • OpenAI: platform.openai.com → API Keys
  • Google Gemini: aistudio.google.com → Get API Key

Each provider offers a free tier or trial credits. Once you have a key, paste it into the API Keys section of the AI Spar settings panel.

Contact

Have a question, found a bug, or want to share feedback? Send us a message and we'll get back to you.