Case Study: The Best UX Research Isn’t AI vs. Humans - It’s AI + Humans… In 1/10th The Time

Overview of the Experiment:

When Adam Root, Chief Product Officer at Root Ventures, set out to understand how brides-to-be choose wedding venues, he wanted to uncover not just broad trends, but the deeper "why" behind their decisions. He decided to compare two research approaches head-to-head: traditional, manual analysis vs. AI-powered insights with Strella.

Adam conducted 13 in-depth conversations with engaged women actively searching for wedding venues. But the real test came after: analyzing the results. He spent 40+ hours manually reviewing and categorizing insights - then let Strella do the same work in just 4 hours.

Through this experiment, Adam learned the best approach isn’t either/or - it’s AI + human expertise. AI isn’t replacing human research, it supercharges it, freeing up the researcher to focus on strategy, creativity, and decision-making.

The results:

Details of the Experiment:

Adam Root set out to gain a deep understanding of how brides-to-be choose wedding venues. While the quantitative research he had previously conducted revealed broad patterns, there was still a missing piece - the "why" behind their decisions.

To bridge this gap, he used Strella's AI-moderator to conduct in-depth interviews with 13 engaged women actively searching for wedding venues. The goal was to uncover their emotions, frustrations, and decision-making processes, leading to actionable insights that wedding venues could use to attract more bookings. Watch a sample question from a few interviews below:

Thanks to the convenience and flexibility of AI-moderation, all 13 interviews came back in a matter of days. And he was then faced with a decision, how should these interviews be analyzed? He had two options:

1. Do it the traditional way: Manually watch each interview, categorize responses and extract trends (a process that could take weeks  - and that's without the additional time it would have taken to schedule and moderate all of the interviews if it weren't for Strella!)
2. Use Strella: An AI-powered research tool that automates and accelerates the analysis - including AI-generated insights, highlight reels and a report

To truly put AI to the test, he decided to do both - spending 40+ hours manually analyzing the interviews and extracting insights, and then comparing his findings to Strella’s AI-generated insights.

Phase 1: The Human-Only, Traditional Approach:

Adam watched all 13 video interviews. He then conducted a manual affinity mapping exercise to prioritize and brainstorm key themes, grouping interview takeaways and extracting actionable insights based on recurring responses. Once the key takeaways from the interviews were identified and grouped, Adam manually extracted actionable insights and bucketed them into common themes based on recurring answers.

Although this process resulted in valuable and detailed insights, the entire process took Adam over 40 hours.

Phase 2: The AI-Powered Approach Using Strella:

Leveraging Strella’s capabilities was simple, all Adam had to do was click “Refresh Insights” after the last session came in, and then Strella automatically analyzed patterns, categorized themes, and generated key insights, each with its own underlying highlight reels.

Adam noticed the benefits of Strella immediately, stating “My process for gaining these insights was immediate, easy and had the drill down capability to go as deep as I wanted”. The same process that took countless hours to complete manually, took only 4 hours leveraging Strella.

The Verdict: The Future of Research is Hybrid:

Adam notes that his experiment revealed the major benefits of integrating tools like Strella - this ~90% reduction in time investment shows a clear benefit that could transform the way businesses and individuals conduct research. “This efficiency doesn't come at the expense of quality,” Adam explains, “in fact, the AI-enhanced approach often reveals novel insights about customer discovery journeys, venue preferences, and decision-making factors that might be missed through traditional methods alone”.

AI isn’t replacing human research, it supercharges it by making it faster, smarter, and more scalable. The best approach isn’t either/or - it’s AI + human expertise. AI handles the heavy lifting, while humans focus on strategy, creativity, and decision-making.

If you want to read more about Adam’s experience conducting this research and using Strella, refer to Adam’s article here!