AI Interview:
An in-depth guide to AI-powered interviews in research
AI interviews are a big leap forward in the research space, offering a powerful method to achieve both depth and scale at the same time.
By Max de Jong · Last update: 23rd of April 2025
Use an AI interview in different situations and for different goals
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User feedback
Customer interviews
Instead of surveys
User tests
Insight sessions
How can AI interviews help you in your research set up? Well, we know how! In this blog we will explain what AI interviews are, how it works, what benefits it has, when it's best to use, or when you better move back to human-led interviews. We have written this article with input from subject matter experts, our own research, our own experience building an AI interview platform and using an AI interview in research. Parts of this article are (re-)written by AI to improve the quality of the article.
Read this article if you would like to know more about AI interviews in research set ups and how it can enrich your research with real human respondents.
Introduction to AI Interviews
In recent years, AI Interviews have emerged as a revolutionary tool in the research and data collection space. The rise of generative AI has enabled us to develop innovative software, leading to the creation of AI research assistants which conduct AI interviews for you.
Unlike traditional methods, AI interviews use advanced technology like Artificial Intelligencealgorithms and machine learning to create questions, analyze answers and reply on answers given by real respondents. It conducts interviews, analyzes responses and generates insights in rather seconds or minutes, than hours or days which is the case with human-led interviews.
By automating the interview process with AI interviews, AI Interviews not only save time but also reduce biases and errors that are often inherent in human-led interviews. This introduction to AI Interviews will explain AI interviews from technology, to functionality, benefits, impact and how you are able to integrate them into your research. Whether you are a seasoned researcher or new to the concept, understanding AI Interviews is essential for harnessing the full potential of artificial intelligence in modern research methodologies.
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What are AI Interviews?
AI Interviews are widely described and defined in different ways. However, if we combine descriptions from multiple sources, like Felix Chora & Ingar Haaland or Harvard Business Reviewwe could define AI interviews as follows:
AI interviews use artificial intelligence to conduct interviews and can respond contextually to a respondent's answer. They use computer programs and machine learning to collect answers through chatbots, virtual assistants, or special software designed for interviews.
Since this is a very technical way of describing it, we have tried to redefine it: AI interviews are interviews where a computer program asks questions and looks at the answers. The program uses special technology called artificial intelligence (AI) to do this. It helps make the process quicker and more equal by reducing mistakes that interviewers might make.
With this definition, we believe we make it clear to everyone what AI interviews are. But what is the primary goal of AI Interviews?
The primary goal of using AI Interviews
The main goal of AI interviews is to make the interview process easier and faster. Since computers can do the job, AI interviews can handle many interviews at the same time. This helps to make sure that the interviews are done the same way every time and that there is less chance for human mistakes or bias. This new method is changing how researchers collect and study information, making it possible to get both detailed descriptions and numbers to be much more confident about the conclusion.
We can see it as the middle ground between qualitative (detailed and descriptive) and quantitative research (numbers and statistics). The benefit of qualitative research is mostly that you are able to dive deeper into the answers of the respondents (because you can ask 'why do you think that?'). Although it has a con that the sample size will be smaller.
In contrast to quantitative research (like surveys) which has a large sample size but less in-depth answers since you're not able to dive deeper into the answers of the respondents. Most of the time the questions are fixed, since they are written in a survey. But, due to the speed of surveys, you are much more confident that the results found are generalizable. This since the sample size is more representative to the population you are investigating.
AI Interviews are able to do both: dig deeper and have a big sample size. With AI interviews, we are able to: (1) create a set of questions to be asked at least by the AI interviewer, (2) analyze the answers real-time and (3) based on the answers dig deeper into the why. Since the answers can be analyzed in real time, the AI interviewer can understand what the person responds and try to get the reasoning behind it by asking a follow-up question based on their previous answer. For example, the AI interview assistant can ask a person questions based on the context given earlier in the interview already: 'Why did you buy a green iPhone if you earlier said your favorite color is blue?'
How do AI interviews work?
To understand how AI interviews work, we will try to teach you something about AI and generative AI, since those are the technologies AI interviews are made of. We start by explaining the very basics of Artificial Intelligence (AI), after that the basics of how AI works and at last the basics of Generative AI. We have an extensive explanation of how AI Interviews work on this page, but for now we will give you a summary below.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving capabilities. On its own or combined with other technologies (e.g., sensors, geolocation, robotics) AI can perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence or intervention. Digital assistants, GPS guidance, autonomous vehicles, and generative AI tools (like OpenAI's Chat GPT) are just a few examples of AI in the daily news and our daily lives (IBM 2024, 'What is AI?'). AI works basically like a human being that always calculates a probability some outcome happens.
How does artificial intelligence work?
AI is all about the calculation of probabilities; 'What is the chance Z happens given conditions XY?'. Probabilities are calculated based on past experience, or in the technical world, past data. Data that showed what happened in similar situations in the past. Let's take the example of me playing golf yes or no based on the weather forecast. Based on the past data that I went for playing golf under certain conditions (rainy, windy, sunny etc.), AI is able to predict if I will be playing golf when the conditions are 'sunny + windy'. If I went for playing golf 10/10 times when it was Sunny (100%) and 5/10 times when it was Windy (50%), AI can do the math for me that the chance of me going to play golf will be 75%. So, just with the weather conditions as given input, AI can give you an answer if there is a high probability I will play golf yes or no (read more in this AI with Naive Bayes example). This is just a simple example, but AI can perform the chance of something to happen with a much larger set of conditions and variables.
What is Generative AI and what does it have to do with AI interviews?
Generative AI is the technology where AI interviews make use of. It works similarly as AI but focuses on predicting the next word in a sentence based on previous patterns. For instance, if you often say 'Hi, how are you,' AI can predict that 'you' follows after 'Hi, how are'. It calculates the chance that a word comes after another and basically it gives the next best guess. It's trained on billions of documents and knows very well what next words come after another. This means, when you give some context, it can give you pretty good answers back on that same context. It can generate full sentences based on previously entered data that the machine learning algorithm is trained on.
So, how do AI interviews work?
And with this, the AI interviews were born. With reading and learning billions of documents related to interviews and research, algorithms know what questions are asked a lot, so it knows what questions to ask, how to formulate questions and how to respond on answers given by respondents. It even understands emotion since it knows specific words are connected to certain emotions (like smile to happy and tears to sad). Within an AI interview, the interview process begins with the AI posing questions to the interviewee, either through text or voice. The AI then analyzes the responses in real-time, to understand and categorize the answers. Based on the responses, the AI can adapt its questions, probing deeper into relevant topics. The data collected from AI interviews is then processed and stored, ready for further analysis. This automated approach ensures consistency and accuracy throughout the interview process.
The Benefits of AI-Powered Interviews
AI powered interviews offer a numerous of benefits for researchers, but also for respondents. We have listed all of them extensively on our article which is linked below, here we give a short summary.
Efficiency & time saving
AI Interviews are efficient, since they are automated. Although it may take some time to set an AI interview up; like defining the target group, creating the questions, and sharing the interview with users, still the number of hours saved is huge since no human is needed during the interviews. This enables you to spend more time on analysis and finding useful insights.
Scalability
With human interviews, the interviews taken are mostly limited to a small number of your user persona's, most of the time between 10 and 20 (depends on the number of persona's)This is mostly the case due to the limited time available to take interviews during a project and the time it takes to analyze all results. Since AI interviews are conducted with no human interference, it's possible to scale your interview to an unlimited number of users.
Cross cultural and multi-language
Since AI will take care of the interviews, the language border is resolved directly as well. Interviews are taken in any language which enables you to find cross-cultural insights by sharing your interview link to people from all cultural backgrounds over the world.
Consistency & objectivity (less bias) ?
AI interviews provide a standardized approach to questioning, which ensures that the set of defined questions are always asked. This is different from human-led interviews, where different interviewers might ask questions differently or change their tone of voice which results in different answers from respondents. With AI interviews, it's easier to compare responses across different respondents. Besides that, the objectivity of the AI interviewer remains neutral and similar during multiple interviews. Human bias is something that can influence the interview process. Although human interviewers unconsciously do this, it may happen in most human interviews due to unconscious bias. AI, on the other hand, evaluates responses solely on the data provided, leading to more objective decision-making.
Cost effectiveness
Traditional interviews require human interviewers, which means paying for their time and expertise. AI interviews eliminate the need for human interviewers, allowing organizations to save on salaries, training, and other associated costs. Once the AI system is set up, it can handle numerous interviews simultaneously without additional costs.
Advanced data analysis
AI interviews provide sophisticated capabilities for advanced data analysis, transforming the way organizations and researchers interpret and utilize interview data. AI systems can analyze responses in real-time during the interview, allowing for immediate feedback and adjustments. This real-time processing enables the AI to probe deeper into relevant topics based on the interviewee’s answers, ensuring comprehensive data collection. Besided this, there are multiple capabilities that are enabled by a textual representation of an interview, like pattern recognition, sentiment analysis, natural language processing, predictive analytics, comprehensive reporting or data visualization.
Accessibility & convenience
AI interviews offer significant improvements in accessibility and convenience, making the interview process more inclusive and user-friendly. It has multiple improvements over human interviews, for example: 24/7 availability, remote accessibility, multilingual support, consistent experience, immediate feedback, reduced anxiety and efficient scheduling,
Improved data quality
AI interviews enhance data quality significantly, ensuring more reliable and valuable insights. This comes through the consistency of interviews by AI in contrast to human interviews. There is consistency in the initial set questions to be asked, there is a elimination of human bias, data collection is very accurate and less error prone, it's real time and it has advanced error detection in answers which are hard to tackle by humans.
The benefits & challenges in one view
It's always good to be questioning the need of AI interviews. AI interviews come with a set of pros and cons. For some use-cases it may not be suitable to use AI interviews, and for others it might be the best option due to difficulties in speed or scale. The benefits and challenges of AI interviews can be found below:
Benefits
Efficiency & Time Saving
Scalability
Cross-Cultural and Multi-Language
Consistency & Objectivity
Cost effectiveness
Advanced data analysis
Accessibility & convenience
Improved Data Quality
Challenges
Lack of human touch and emotion
Technical issues
Limited flexibility to change during a conversation
Bias in algorithms
Privacy concerns
Resistance in adoption by respondents
Cost of implementation
Less respondent engagement during the interview
Set up an AI interview yourself
Curious to try it out yourself? Within a few minutes you would be able to integrate AI interviews into your own research. Just follow the steps below to create an AI interview on our platform.
1. Request access on this page
Register for an account with Pitchwave. If you haven't requested access yet, do this first to ensure you will get credentials for your account.
2. Sign in here
After the registration, sign in with the credentials you received.
3. Create a project
After signing in, you are able to create a project which will help you to manage your AI interviews in a structured manner.
4. Create an AI interview assistant
After creating a project, you can create an AI interview assistant by clicking "Create a new research". Once the important details are entered, you can brand your assistant to match your brand style.
5. Brand your AI interview assistant
Branding ensures that users recognize your brand which builds trust. Upload your logo and select your brand colors to match your interview styling.
6. Share your interview link with real respondents
Once your AI interview is ready and branded, you will receive an interview link. Share this link with your respondents so they can start the interview immediately.
7. Receive responses and insights in a few minutes
After respondents complete the AI interview, their answers will appear in your dashboard. You can analyze individual responses or export all data for further analysis.
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