What’s new in Discuss
Research breaks down when teams spend more time setting up, coordinating, and translating than actually learning. This release focuses on removing that friction so you can get to insights faster, run studies with less overhead, and involve more of your team in the process.
Plan and launch research faster with built-in expertise
AI Guided Research Setup
Click the image above to explore the interactive demo of AI guided research setup.
AI-led interviews are quickly changing how research gets done, and AI Guided Research Setup is built for this shift. Start with a goal, paste a brief, or upload an existing discussion guide, and Discuss translates it into a structured interview with clear questions, targeted probes, and defined learning objectives tailored for AI interviewing. It combines qualitative best practices with patterns that work in AI-led conversations, so teams get stronger, more consistent outputs from the start. You can refine and build on it at any point, keeping your team’s expertise in the loop without the overhead of building from scratch.
What you can do now
- Turn high-level goals into clear interview guides with questions, probes, and learning goals
- Apply proven qualitative frameworks automatically, whether you’re new to research or experienced
- Move directly from planning to execution with questions programmed automatically into the Activity Builder
Learn more in the Help Center.
Virtual Personas (Private Beta)
Virtual Personas add a new layer to the research lifecycle by turning your existing knowledge—past research, briefs, quant reports, demographics, and behavioral data—into dynamic AI-powered personas. They replicate real-world consumer behavior, evolve as new data is added, and simulate future decisions with high predictive power. This gives teams fast, always-on access to their audience and early direction before primary research, ensuring studies are better scoped, more focused, and higher impact.
What you can do now
- Stay ahead of change and explore how different segments might respond to concepts or messaging
- Use in idea workshops, campaign brainstorming, and hypothesis testing
- Empower every team with a self-serve experience that helps anyone explore ideas
- Ground early decisions in existing research before investing in live studies
Learn more in the Help Center.
Run live global research without barriers or disruptions
Real-time AI Translation in the Meeting Room
You can now follow conversations across languages as they happen, with live English translation and transcript in the backroom. This makes it easier for stakeholders to observe sessions in any market without relying on translators or waiting for summaries.
What you can do now
- Understand sessions in real time, even when they’re not in your language
- Reduce reliance on external translation support
- Scale studies across regions without adding operational overhead
Learn more in the Help Center.
Automatic recording controls
You now have full control over how sessions are recorded, including automatic recording when sessions begin. This helps you avoid missed recordings and reduces the need for manual intervention during live sessions. Teams can set their preferences at the project level to ensure all session recordings are captured, with the ability to adjust settings as needed at the session level when creating interviews.
Required background blur
Moderators can require background blur for all participants in a session, helping protect participant privacy and maintain a consistent visual standard across sessions. Require Background Blur in the Meeting Room can be configured at the project level in addition to the session level when creating an individual interview. When enabled, all video streams in the Meeting Room will display with background blur applied.
Edit respondent names in-session
Moderators can now update respondent names directly in the meeting room, so you can quickly address privacy needs or errors without interrupting the session.
Learn more in the Help Center.
Keep AI interviews flowing without disruption
Multiple choice tasks in Interview Agent
Close-ended questions can now live inside AI-led interviews without breaking the conversation, so you can combine qualitative depth with structured close-ended questions in a single, seamless experience.
What you can do now
- Add single select, multi-select, and ranking questions within the conversation
- Keep respondents in the AI flow instead of sending them to separate tasks
Additional Enhancements
We’ve made several other improvements to help you build and manage activities more efficiently, reducing repetitive setup work and giving you more control over the respondent experience.
- Duplicate tasks to reuse structure and save time
- Add a custom exit message to control how sessions end
- Introduce stimulus with context before respondents engage
- Randomize task order to reduce bias
Learn more in the Help Center.
Give recruiters the right level of access
Recruiter role updates
Recruiters can now do more without getting full project access. This update makes it easier for recruiters to schedule and manage sessions while keeping permissions controlled.
Recruiters can be granted enhanced permissions on a per-project basis. Set the user to Researcher at the org level, then enable enhanced permissions from the Project Members list. With this, recruiters can create and manage sessions and access limited project settings. Additionally, the Omni-Recruiter role has now become a checkbox. Simply check "Recruiter can see all respondent data in the Respondent Hub" if needed.
What to know
- Enhanced permissions are controlled per project
- Only Project Owners, Editors, Collaborators or Discuss can manage these settings
- Changes take effect immediately
- If a recruiter is switched back to Viewer at the org level, enhanced permissions are removed (and restored if changed back)