Team is Skeptical About Using AI in Research? Here Are 10 Things to Tell Them

Using AI-moderated interviews and AI-powered synthesis can feel like a big leap—especially when team members imagine robotic conversations, rigid insights and worry about losing the personal touch and control that comes with human-led research. It’s understandable. Integrating AI into your research workflows can feel like a big shift from the way teams traditionally operate.

We spoke with researchers and participants to debunk some of the common misconceptions surrounding AI-powered research. Here are the takeaways:

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Misconception #1: AI-Moderated Interviews Sacrifice Quality

Reality: It Reduces Bias and Helps Unlock More Authentic, Unfiltered Responses

AI’s neutrality is one of its strongest assets. Participants respond without the influence of a moderator’s tone or nonverbal cues. Here’s how one participant described the experience:

“Without a human moderator, I wasn’t paying attention to nonverbal cues or their tone of voice… I simply was asked questions and able to elaborate.” (Learn more)

And the benefits it unlocked for the researcher:

“I don’t think I was prepared for the additional benefit we got by removing the judgment of another person. Respondents were more forthcoming because it’s AI—there’s less of a feeling of being judged, and there was an unexpected immediate comfort.” (Learn more)

By keeping the conversation neutral and unbiased, AI allows researchers to collect cleaner, more authentic data.

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Misconception #2: AI-Powered Research Is a Black Box

Reality: Everything is Auditable, & You’re Still in Control

One common misconception is that AI-powered research might feel opaque or out of the researcher's control. In reality, you are still in the driver’s seat and have the flexibility to customize the discussion guide, follow-ups and insights as much as you like. Every insight and recommendation is easily auditable and always tied back to ground truth: the participants video & audio response.

“You still see all of [the participants] information, review the guide, choose your panelists, and see all the insights that come out.” (Learn more)

“I still felt very much a part of the process. I could put my own spin on it and add that human element every step of the way.” (Learn more)

AI doesn’t take over; instead, it acts as an assistant, streamlining repetitive tasks while leaving critical decisions and oversight to your team.

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Misconception #3: AI-Moderated Interviews Are Just for Consumer Companies

Reality: It Works Equally Well for B2B and B2C Studies

Teams often assume AI moderation is better suited for consumer-focused research, but it’s just as powerful for B2B - and can help boost participant response rates and engagement from audiences that are typically hard to reach:

“[Human-moderated interviews] tend to take place during business hours, and so I like being able to do it on my own time”  (Learn more)

“Sometimes it's very difficult to ask questions in a survey that's applicable across different jobs and different business sizes too. But in an AI interview it's like the AI is going to collect some basic information from you about your job and then adjust accordingly. And so I feel a little bit more comfortable that the conversation will go in a way that makes sense”  (Learn more)

And for one B2B customer, Strella helped the team unlock ‘the best showcase of user insights in the company’s 13-year history’

“Compared to other user research tools I’ve used, Strella is smarter at uncovering the insights that truly matter. It was a mic drop moment when I played the highlight reel - hearing the insights surfaced from real users has been a game changer for us” (Learn more)

AI is smart enough to ask follow-up questions and take the conversation deeper for both B2B and B2C, plus you have the opportunity to train the AI on your environment and business, and moderate in 20+ different languages!

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Misconception #4: AI-Moderated Interviews Only Works for Specific Use Cases

Reality: It’s Flexible for Any Research Need

AI moderation isn’t one-size-fits-all—it adapts to a wide range of research needs, from quick usability tests to in-depth exploratory studies:

“We’ve used Strella for everything from usability testing on our website to concept testing and customer discovery. Whether it’s a quick, focused study or a larger exploratory project, it’s been incredibly flexible and adaptable to our needs.” (Learn more)

“You can justify shorter qualitative studies, like a 5- to 10-minute conversation, that with traditional methods just wouldn’t make sense for the amount of lift required.” (Learn more)

This flexibility opens doors for research projects that might otherwise be too costly or time-consuming.

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Misconception #5: My Team Doesn’t Have Budget For Qualitative Research

Reality: You Can Save Budget Without Cutting Corners

Traditional qualitative research can be expensive. However, AI-moderated interviews can make research possible for teams working with tight budgets:

“We didn’t have the budget this year to do human-moderated focus groups. With Strella, it’s completely changed the game. We can now run qualitative research where we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.” (Learn more)

“It was incredibly helpful to not only hear, but also see how people navigate Amazon, and what factors are most important to their purchase decision. We wouldn’t have been able to get that level of detail from an online survey. With Strella we were able to do this entire project so fast and at a fraction of the cost!" (Learn more)

AI moderation isn’t just cost-effective—it ensures you don’t have to compromise on quality.

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Misconception #6: AI Moderation Is Unproven

Reality: It’s Already Delivering Results for Leading Brands

The insights unlocked from Strella’s AI-moderated interviews have driven real, direct impact for brands like MeUndies and Ritual:

“Without Strella, we would’ve lost the ability to do qualitative research entirely. What would’ve taken months was done nine times faster, and we were able to take action on six major product decisions.” (Learn more)

“The success we saw in this gave us so much more confidence in our rollout strategy. At first, we had an earlier version of the pricing model that we rolled back because we just didn’t have the insight to know what about it wasn’t working. But after testing with Strella, we were able to make more informed decisions, and from here on out we will be able to have a more robust testing and iteration strategy.” (Learn more)

Explore our case studies to learn more about how AI-moderated interviews have helped leading brands make faster, smarter decisions.

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Misconception #7: It Automates Everything and Replaces Us

Reality: It Handles the Heavy Lifting—But You’re Still in Charge

Analyzing qualitative data can be time-consuming, but AI moderation enhances your capabilities, letting you spend more time on what you do best: interpreting and applying insights.

“Strella did for us like 60-70% of the work in a matter of minutes. It synthesized transcripts, highlighted themes, and even created video reels of key moments.” (Learn more)

“The best UX research isn’t AI vs. Humans—it’s AI + Humans. Specifically AI + Strella. With Strella I was able to create a better analysis than my own…in 1/10 the time. (Learn more)

By automating the heavy lifting, AI lets researchers focus on deeper analysis and strategic insights.

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Misconception #8: It Won’t Save Me Time, Because I Still Want to Moderate Some of the Calls

Reality: Your Team Can Still Moderate!

‍Coming from research backgrounds ourselves, we understand the importance of having that firsthand empathy in research, which is why you can upload your own human-moderated calls into Strella. The AI then pulls out the key insights, highlight reels, and themes, making it easy to combine both AI and human moderation.

"Strella's Zoom integration and synthesis make it super easy to share the key clips with my team immediately after a call. It's saved so much time because now the team doesn't feel the need to sit on or re-watch every interview"

“I upload my interviews to Strella as I go, and then use the platform to find trends and really fast-track my synthesis. It's really great having everything in one central place because I can easily share reels and videos with my team.“

"I’ve been using Strella for a little over 6 months now and love the end to end project support and the video upload feature! I’ve used the video upload feature many times to help speed up analysis and quickly search for new insights. Strella’s intuitive tools and efficient processing have drastically reduced the time I spend on data analysis."

This means you still get the benefit of AI-powered synthesis even when you are running your own calls.

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Misconception #9: Participants Won’t Like Talking to an AI

Reality: Many Participants Prefer It

It’s easy to assume participants might hesitate to talk to an AI moderator, but the reality is quite the opposite. As one participant explained:

“It's easy to schedule at your convenience, and I think it's kind of cool, frankly, to be able to voice your opinion like this. And then it builds off of the answers that you give and then, you know, asks questions accordingly.” (Learn more)

The lack of judgment creates a more comfortable environment, especially when discussing sensitive topics. Another participant highlighted:

“I actually really liked the AI-moderated interview because it felt more free to share my opinions. I really enjoyed knowing that there wasn't a human on the other end, so I felt less judged” (Learn more)

AI moderation removes the pressure of interacting with another person, and allows participants to share their feedback anytime, and anywhere!

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Misconception #10: Are the Participants Even Real?

Reality: Fraud Prevention Is Built In

One major worry is participant fraud—how can you ensure the people in your study are who they say they are? This concern is tackled head-on with our panel partner Respondent’s thorough recruitment approach and robust safeguards:

“Researchers rate participants, and our team reviews those ratings. If anyone is found to misrepresent themselves, they’re removed from the panel to maintain its quality.” (Learn more)

“All of our participants have email verification, phone verification, and IP address checks. For B2B projects, we even require LinkedIn profiles and work email verification.” (Learn more)

Respondent takes on as much of the quality check and review process as possible so that researchers can focus on gathering and actioning insights.

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The Bottom Line

AI moderation is not about sacrificing quality or taking the human touch out of research—it’s about empowering teams to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently.

Ready to give it a try? Let’s chat - we’d love to show you how AI can elevate your research game.