For people who could be imprisoned simply for asking questions about Jesus, an AI conversation can be the safest first step. Transform Iran built Kairos to make that step possible.
Lana Silk leads Transform Iran, a ministry that has spent decades preparing for what it calls an "open Iran": translating Bibles, training pastors and building networks to serve Iran's persecuted but thriving underground church. Kairos is its free, AI-powered evangelism and discipleship tool, designed especially for Farsi and other right-to-left languages and already used in more than 150 countries.
In this episode, recorded at the Missional AI 2026 Global Summit in Silicon Valley, Stuart Cranney sits down with Lana to hear her story, how Kairos works and what she believes God is preparing for Iran.
Lana's calling was shaped by the day she was born, her family's exile and a costly reminder of what's at stake.
Lana was born in Iran in September 1978 on "Black Friday," one of the deadliest days of the protests that led to the Islamic Revolution. Her mother remembers driving to a hospital that felt like a war zone. As soon as Lana was old enough to understand, she prayed: Lord, if the day I was born had significance in Iran's story, let my life have significance for Iran's story.
When she was nine, her parents, both pastors, sensed God leading them to leave Iran as persecution increased. They left with heavy hearts. Afterward, God spoke to them again: the church was about to be driven underground, and they were to establish a ministry to support, grow and resource that persecuted but thriving church. Lana kept reading her Bible in Farsi so her language and connection would stay alive.
A few years later came her baptism. Just before it, unknown to her, her father received a call: his best friend, the pastor overseeing the churches and the man whose dream had confirmed their departure, had been martyred. Lana learned the news afterward, when her cousin ran in crying. In that moment, she sensed God reminding her what was at stake: this is an all-or-nothing faith. She didn't feel called to martyrdom, but she knew how high the stakes were.
Looking back, including what she studied, where she worked and even marrying an Englishman who'd never thought about Iran, Lana sees how God was preparing her for the work she does today.
For more than three decades, Transform Iran has prepared for the day Iran opens to the gospel.
With Iran now in global headlines, Lana says the ministry isn't surprised. Every year, its annual report repeats the word God gave her parents in 1988: Iran is going to open, and your task is to prepare the church.
Her father puts it this way: not praying is a problem, but praying and not preparing is a serious problem, because it means you don't truly believe God will answer. That conviction has shaped every decision. Knowing that pain and suffering will likely come before an open Iran, Transform Iran has trained pastors, translated Bibles and built tools and networks so the church is ready when the doors open. Now, Lana says, they're having "eleventh-hour conversations."
Transform Iran didn't set out to "do AI." It set out to bridge the gap between people consuming gospel content and people ready to talk about it.
If hundreds of thousands of people seek Jesus, Lana asks, how could the church possibly train enough pastors in time? "We weren't trying to get into AI. We were trying to solve a problem."
Transform Iran shares the gospel through satellite TV, radio, social media, apps and websites. Tens of millions consume that content, but only thousands make a phone call to talk further. As the team dug in, they found many reasons: fear of punishment, fear of shame in a culture that avoids difficult conversations, time zones and availability, and simply preferring a personal conversation that isn't with a person. They needed something to bridge content, curiosity and connection, and AI did that.
Talking to a machine removes much of the emotional risk. No one is judging, coercing or looking down on you. That isn't only true in persecuted settings. At the summit, Lana met a man who had spent 20 years as a Jehovah's Witness. He had questions about faith but didn't want to be judged or preached at by Christians who knew his past. For him, Kairos would be ideal.
Kairos grew out of a decade of Farsi apologetics, curated by theologians and backed by round-the-clock human oversight.
Ten years ago, Transform Iran launched a Farsi apologetics center, the first of its kind, where people could ask questions and find answers in published articles. Over time, it grew to about 7,000 articles. But people increasingly wanted shorter, personalized answers, so the team began building a chatbot to help navigate the content, then realized it could do far more.
They spent months curating every article, improving them, filling gaps and removing duplicates, ending with more than 5,200 articles. Added to Scripture, and trained to distinguish God's Word from human-written content, these became the backbone of Kairos. Development took seven months and was led by theologians and apologists. "This was a church tool first and foremost."
Kairos is built with emotional intelligence. It can sense where someone is and respond with care, flag signs of suicide risk or other mental health concerns so the team can step in, and stay calm and respectful when users are hostile. It once told an abusive user that there was "no need to take that tone" but that it would gladly continue a respectful conversation.
Transform Iran provides human oversight 24/7 and adjusts Kairos whenever it risks encouraging unhealthy dependence. Soon after launch, Kairos began offering to pray for people. The team could see how it built its answers: it had drawn on an article about prayer and relevant Scripture to write a faith-filled, biblical prayer. But machines can't pray, so they changed it.
There was another reason. Many users come from a Muslim background, where a religious leader might write a prayer for someone to recite without engaging. Transform Iran didn't want to recreate that. Now Kairos says, in effect, "Let me show you how you can pray about this," and teaches people to engage with the words, which is why they call it an AI-powered discipleship tool.
Even during some of the darkest days in Iran's recent history, people have been turning to Kairos to ask about Jesus.
Transform Iran expected Kairos to serve mainly as advanced apologetics. What surprised them was how many seekers came during an intensely oppressive period. In January, at the height of crackdowns in which Lana believes tens of thousands were killed, one man reached out. He'd never met a Christian and didn't know what Christianity was, but Jesus had been on his mind for years, and with everything happening, he needed to understand. Talking to a person would have felt unsafe; a machine felt safe. After working through many questions, including about the Quran, he decided to follow Jesus.
To those who question whether God can work through technology, Lana points to history. People once questioned the printing press. When Transform Iran began satellite broadcasting in Farsi in 2000, people called it crazy; now it's essential. It's a shame, she says, when Christians miss the chance to use what's available, responsibly, to accelerate God's work.
Lana anticipates an avalanche of need when Iran opens. Transform Iran is adapting Kairos for trauma support, a version for its trauma counseling center. Many people have suffered terribly, including abuse in prison, and there are far more people needing help than counselors to see them. Kairos can offer support and resources while people wait for a human counselor.
History shows that when regimes like this fall, there's a window of opportunity, and then it closes as people turn to the comforts and distractions of the world. Transform Iran wants to be ready so that window isn't lost.
Transform Iran wants to keep Kairos free, but its success is driving up costs.
The goal has always been to remove every barrier: fear, shame, safety, access and cost. Much of the persecuted world is also poor and can't afford a subscription. But demand is growing fast: the app saw 130,000 downloads in its first three weeks. Together with a free VPN Transform Iran provides, Kairos costs over $1,000 a month just in tokens, software and servers, not counting staff. Lana's ask is simple: help them keep it free.
Asked to describe the Iran she sees ahead, Lana is moved to tears.
In the Old Testament, Persian kings protected and provided for God's people, even though we have no record that they followed Him. Darius came close in Daniel's story, and Cyrus funded the rebuilding of the temple. Lana wants to see Iran play that role again, a nation and leaders that empower the work of God's kingdom.
She believes the darkness around Iran today reflects a spiritual battle: the enemy knows God's plans for Iran are for life, joy and light, and is fighting to keep his stronghold. But she believes God will regain that ground. She sees Iran becoming a light across the Middle East, so that when people see what God has done, something no human could do, they will glorify Him and choose to follow Jesus.
Lana shared more about this work at the Missional AI 2026 Global Summit. Find her sessions in the Missional AI Video Library under Silicon Valley 2026:
Listen to the full episode with Lana Silk on the Missional AI Podcast. To explore Kairos or support Transform Iran in keeping it free, visit Transform Iran online.
Missional AI London takes place July 15 in Westminster, bringing together leaders, builders and thinkers to explore how to use AI well, with wisdom rather than fear or hype. Tickets are £99 at missional.ai.
This episode was made possible in partnership with Transform Iran and Gloo.