Outset is using GPT-4 to make user surveys better
Getting answers to tough, qualitative questions about products from users can be costly, both in terms of time and money.
At least, that was the experience of Aaron Cannon, a former strategist at Deloitte, where he was responsible for facilitating research projects for Deloitte clients. Cannon and his team would spend hundreds of hours on a client project, only to have to devote additional time — and resources — to scheduling and moderating interviews with the said client’s customers.
“Enterprise decision makers expect faster and faster results from insights teams,” Cannon told TechCrunch in an email interview. “Researchers are feeling that pressure every day, particularly after being hit hard by 2022 layoffs. The biggest risk to the industry today is that the increasing speed of decision making leads to a decreasing ability for insights functions to keep up. That’s why researchers need the tools to accelerate and amplify their work.”
So Cannon teamed up with Michael Hess, who he met while working at Untapped, a talent recruiting startup, to found Outset. A Y Combinator-backed company, Outset autonomously conducts — and synthesizes — interviews.
“The broader slowdown and associated layoffs have hit research and insights teams disproportionately hard. But the demands from business leaders to make more informed and strategic decisions has not slowed down, leading to expectations of doing more with less,” Cannon said. “This is a tailwind for Outset as people look to technology to amplify their work.”
Outset taps GPT-4, OpenAI’s flagship text-generating AI model, to lead interviews with participants in research studies. How, exactly? Outset users create a survey and share the link with prospective survey takers. Then, Outset — powered by GPT-4 — follows up with respondents to clarify, probe on answers and create a “conversational rapport” for deeper responses.
At least, that was the experience of Aaron Cannon, a former strategist at Deloitte, where he was responsible for facilitating research projects for Deloitte clients. Cannon and his team would spend hundreds of hours on a client project, only to have to devote additional time — and resources — to scheduling and moderating interviews with the said client’s customers.
“Enterprise decision makers expect faster and faster results from insights teams,” Cannon told TechCrunch in an email interview. “Researchers are feeling that pressure every day, particularly after being hit hard by 2022 layoffs. The biggest risk to the industry today is that the increasing speed of decision making leads to a decreasing ability for insights functions to keep up. That’s why researchers need the tools to accelerate and amplify their work.”
So Cannon teamed up with Michael Hess, who he met while working at Untapped, a talent recruiting startup, to found Outset. A Y Combinator-backed company, Outset autonomously conducts — and synthesizes — interviews.
“The broader slowdown and associated layoffs have hit research and insights teams disproportionately hard. But the demands from business leaders to make more informed and strategic decisions has not slowed down, leading to expectations of doing more with less,” Cannon said. “This is a tailwind for Outset as people look to technology to amplify their work.”
Outset taps GPT-4, OpenAI’s flagship text-generating AI model, to lead interviews with participants in research studies. How, exactly? Outset users create a survey and share the link with prospective survey takers. Then, Outset — powered by GPT-4 — follows up with respondents to clarify, probe on answers and create a “conversational rapport” for deeper responses.
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