Center for Strategic & International Studies

When authoritarian states face external pressure and internal dissent, the line between stability and collapse can vanish overnight. Emily Harding (CSIS Director, Intelligence, National Security, & Technology Program), Ben Jensen (CSIS Director, Futures Lab), and Erol Yayboke (Chief Research Officer, FilterLabs.AI) use AI-enhanced analysis to explore what comes next in Iran. Drawing on FilterLabs' social media sentiment mapping, insights from recent news, and a RAG agent trained on political unrest literature, the session presents two futures for Iran—one defined by rage at the top, the other by passive resistance from below—and invites a dialogue on how the current conflict could evolve in the coming months.