| Available on | Included in the Dscout AI add-on |
AI moderated studies let you conduct interview-like sessions at the speed and scale of unmoderated studies. Using your research objectives and questions as a guide, Dscout AI will dynamically ask participants questions to collect the insightful data you’d expect from a moderated session.
AI moderated studies are:
- Continuously recorded: Participant screens, webcams, and audio will be recorded for the entirety of the study.
- Desktop-only: Participants will be required to complete AI moderated studies using a desktop or laptop computer—they cannot use a mobile device.
- Dynamic to each participant: The AI moderator adjusts its focus and depth based on participant responses, meaning no two sessions are exactly the same but your research objectives always remain consistent.
Build an AI moderated study
When building an AI moderated study, you’ll start by defining your overall research objectives. Then, you’ll add questions, combining closed-ended questions with open-ended conversation and task questions. For open-ended questions, you’ll generate question-specific moderation guides in the builder for the AI moderator to follow when conducting participant sessions.
Define research objectives
On the AI moderator tab of your study, you’ll define your overall research objectives:
Here, clearly state what you hope to achieve in your study. Maybe you want to evaluate the intuitiveness of a new user interface. Or maybe you want to assess the perception participants have of your company’s rebrand. Whatever your goal, here are some guidelines to follow when adding them to the builder:
- Write 3–5 clear objectives. Keep each to one sentence.
- Focus on what you want participants to share, reflect on, or demonstrate.
- Keep objectives specific and distinct—avoid combining multiple goals into one.
The AI moderator will use these objectives to generate question-specific moderation guides throughout your study.
Add questions
Once you’ve defined your research objectives, you’ll add your study questions on the AI moderator tab.
AI moderated studies support the following question types:
| Question | Description |
|---|---|
| Conversation |
Engage participants in a real-time, back-and-forth dialogue with an AI moderator. For more information, see Conversation questions. |
| Conversation with task |
Have participants complete a specific action or activity on an attached website or prototype, guided by an AI moderator. When including task URLs, you can choose to keep participants on the task while the AI moderator asks follow-up questions. To keep participants on the task, set the Stay on task URL toggle to ON. Note: Task questions in AI moderated studies differ from those in other Dscout study types. Here, you’ll enter a question objective and generate a moderation guide rather than entering a task prompt. |
| Multiple choice |
Provide participants with a question/prompt and a list of options to choose from. Tip: Knockout logic can be applied to multiple choice questions to disqualify applicants during the screener portion of your mission. For more information, see Knockout questions. |
| Scale |
Have participants rate how they feel about a statement on a predefined scale. You can customize the Start value and End value with your own labels. Note: Scale questions do not support stim in AI moderated studies. |
Note: Your study’s estimated length is displayed at the top of the builder and updated as you add questions. We recommend keeping AI moderated studies to 30 minutes or less to avoid participant fatigue.
Enable follow-up questions
The AI moderator dynamically guides participants through conversation and task questions, asking any follow-ups necessary. However, you can also enable follow-ups on closed-ended questions:
For example, with Ask follow-ups enabled, the AI moderator can dig deeper to understand why a participant chose a certain value on a scale question or why they made a certain selection on a multiple choice question.
Launch an AI moderated study
When you’re ready to open your study to participants, you’ll launch it from the builder.
Warning: You cannot edit an AI-moderated study once it’s been launched. We recommend testing your study prior to launch to see how the AI moderator interprets your moderation guides and how it reacts to a natural conversation.
Depending on your chosen recruitment approach, one of the following will happen when you launch:
- Auto-recruit: Your study will become available to applicants from Dscout’s Scout Panel or Partner Panels, depending on your selection.
- Add from screeners: Selected participants will receive an email inviting them to your study.
- Invite via share link: Your study’s share link will be activated and accessible to participants who have it.
- Invite from Private Panels: Selected participants will receive an email inviting them to your study.
Regardless of recruitment approach, the participant experience in an AI moderated study will look the same.
First, participants will undergo a hardware setup, selecting a screen to share and granting access to their webcam and microphone:
Once their hardware is set, they’ll click Begin recorded session to start:
As they progress through the study, bars at the top of the page indicate the participant’s position. And at the bottom of the page, a control bar lets them mute their microphone, pause the session, flag a concerning moment, or end the session:
At the end of your study, the AI moderator will thank the participants and automatically end the session.
Analyze an AI moderated study
To help you get to the heart of responses quickly, AI moderated studies offer two unique analysis features: summaries of open-ended questions and emerging themes for fast immersion.
Open-ended summaries
From the Responses tab of your study, you can view responses to closed-ended questions as you would in any other Dscout study type. However, open-ended questions are displayed slightly differently.
For each open-ended question, you’ll find an AI-generated summary drawn from all participant responses as well as summaries generated for each individual participant:
To view the entire transcript from a participant’s responses, navigate to their full session recording.
Emerging themes
AI moderated studies collect interview-depth responses at scale. But how do you review those responses at a speed to match? Dscout AI helps by surfacing emerging themes in automatic playlists that update with new clips as responses roll in. Themes are identified using your research objectives as inspiration as well as comments or topics that arise across participants.
The emerging themes modal opens the first time you access the Responses tab of your study. You can also access it again later by clicking the icon in the bottom left corner of the page:
In the modal, select a theme from the list to view a playlist of supporting clips from real participant responses:
If a playlist strikes a chord, you can share it with a colleague directly using the Copy link icon. Or, you can open it directly in Dscout's playlist editor by clicking the View playlist icon to modify it before sharing more broadly: