.png&w=384&q=75){kind=small}
Interviews is one of the formats in the Popscale platform – the same conversation, different purposes.
See the whole platform →An AI conversation for asking, reflecting and understanding.
Interviews lets people answer in their own voice in a structured AI-led conversation. How the conversation is used is decided by the purpose.
Neutral AI interviewer · Relevant follow-up questions · Traceable answers
Example of an interview
The conversation
The AI interviewer
Which parts of advising members do you feel most confident with?
The employee
I feel confident understanding the customer's goals and explaining how the membership works.
The AI interviewer
Which part becomes hardest when the customer hesitates or wants to wait?
Structured output
- Topic
- Handling hesitation · sufficiently covered · high confidence
- Summary
- The respondent is confident in needs analysis and in explaining the offer, but describes uncertainty when the customer wants to postpone the decision.
- Open questions
- What the respondent does today when the customer asks to get back to them.
- Recommended action · coaching
- A Roleplay with a customer who wants to think it over until next month. The evidence links to the turns in the conversation behind it.
One format.
The purpose shapes the conversation.
The same interview technique can carry different purposes. The purpose decides which questions are asked, how the AI follows up and what the answers are used for. This is what an Interview can be used for today:
Study
Understand many people’s perspectives on the same question – employees, customers or experts. The same interview guide, individual follow-up questions, one shared body of material.
Run as a Study
Debrief
Capture what happened after a launch, a change or a period. What went as planned, what came as a surprise and what needs following up.
A Study after the launch
Reflection
Let employees describe what feels secure and what is difficult after training or real-world application – in their own words, without being coached.
A Study aimed at employees
Capture expert knowledge
Interview top performers and experts about how they reason, which signals they notice and which trade-offs aren’t in the manual.
A Study aimed at experts
Assessment mode
A neutral, non-coaching interview that gathers material against defined criteria. The interviewer doesn’t help the participant reach the answer.
In Assessments · in development
An Interview is the conversation. The purpose decides why it is held, how the AI behaves and how the answers are used.
The role of the AI.
The interviewer is there to understand. Not to coach.
This is the most important difference between Interviews and Coaching. In Coaching, the AI may help the participant move forward: give feedback, ask pedagogical questions, help the person reason, give new attempts and recommend a next step. In Interviews, the AI is not to help the respondent towards a better answer.
It should
- Asks the question
- Listens to the answer
- Asks for clarification when it’s needed
- Asks for examples
- Follows up on the relevant parts
- Stays within the frames of the interview guide
- Documents what the person actually expresses
It should not
- Doesn’t reveal what the organization hopes to hear
- Doesn’t praise one answer to steer the next
- Gives no hints
- Doesn’t correct the person mid-reasoning
- Doesn’t argue for a particular perspective
Neutrality in the conversation is a product rule – not a tone of voice.
Ask one thing at a time.
Follow the answer where it’s needed.
A form asks the same question regardless of what the person just answered. A human interviewer can instead notice that something needs to be developed. Interviews is built for that difference – the example at the top of the page shows how a follow-up question picks up where the answer left off.
The follow-up question is there to help the organization get better material – not to help the respondent give a “better” answer.
How it works.
How an Interview works.
- 01
Define the purpose
Decide what the conversation is to be used for – understanding many perspectives, capturing a debrief, letting employees reflect or gathering material for assessment – and what you need to capture.
- 02
Build the interview guide
Define topics, questions, possible follow-up questions, frames and what needs to be covered.
- 03
Run the conversation
The respondent takes part in an AI-led voice interview. The AI asks one question at a time and follows up within the frames you have set.
- 04
Structure the answers
The conversation is transcribed and the answers are organized by the questions, topics or assessment areas that belong to the setup.
- 05
Keep the material
Transcripts and relevant wordings make it possible to go back to what the person actually said.
What happens after that depends on the purpose:
To understand, many Interviews in a Study are compiled into shared qualitative findings.
To assess, the participant’s answers are read against defined criteria – the assessment mode being built in Assessments.
The purpose is to understand.
Many perspectives on the same question.
When the purpose is to understand, the conversations are run as a Study. The same interview guide can be aimed at, for example:
Customer-facing employees
- Which customer questions keep coming back?
- Where does friction occur?
- Which customer situations feel hardest?
- What works better at some units than others?
- What knowledge is missing when the customer asks?
Customers
- How was a specific step in the customer journey experienced?
- What created uncertainty?
- Why did the customer choose one option over another?
- What made a customer interaction good or bad?
- What happened before the customer left?
Experts and top performers
- How do they reason in difficult customer situations?
- Which questions do they ask?
- Which signals do they notice?
- Which exceptions and trade-offs aren’t in the manual?
When many such Interviews belong together, they are organized as a Study.
The purpose is to assess.
The same conversation, in assessment mode.
In assessment mode, the neutral interviewer gathers material against criteria the organization has defined. The setup is built in Assessments, which is in development. It can concern, for example:
The participant puts their answer in their own words. The interviewer can ask the person to develop or explain their reasoning, but is not to coach them towards the right answer.
The assessment is made after or on the basis of the answers, against criteria the organization has defined.
The same structure.
Individual conversations.
Scalability doesn’t mean every conversation has to be word-for-word identical. You can give each respondent:
At the same time, relevant follow-up questions can adapt to what the person actually answers.
Standardized frames. Individual answers.
Control and traceability.
Clear frames. Traceable answers. Human judgement.
Interviews creates material. It doesn’t replace human responsibility.
You control the setup
Purpose, audience, questions, instructions and use are defined before the interview starts.
The context of the answers is preserved
Transcripts and relevant wordings make it possible to check what the person actually expressed.
People review the result
Summaries, assessments and recommendations should be reviewable before they are used for important decisions.
Neutral doesn’t automatically mean free of bias
An AI model can contain bias and some variation. That’s why instructions, criteria and output need to be quality assured and calibrated for the area of use.
Not for automated high-risk decisions
An AI-generated result shouldn’t on its own decide sensitive or intrusive matters about an individual person.
Frequently asked questions.
About Popscale Interviews.
What is Popscale Interviews?
Interviews is one of the formats in the Popscale platform: a structured AI-led conversation where people answer in their own voice. The purpose – understanding many perspectives or gathering material for assessment – decides how the AI behaves and how the answers are used.
What is the difference between an Interview and a Study?
An Interview is a single conversation. A Study organizes many Interviews around a shared question and compiles the answers into findings about, for example, customers, customer interactions or ways of working. Debriefs, reflections and expert interviews are run as Studies with different focus.
What is the difference between an Interview and an Assessment?
An Interview is the conversation itself. An Assessment defines what is to be assessed, which criteria apply and how the participant’s answers are to be evaluated. Assessments as a product of its own is in development.
How does Interviews differ from Coaching?
Coaching is meant to develop the participant and may give feedback and guidance. Interviews is meant to gather material without steering the person towards a desired answer.
Can an Interview be part of a Journey?
Not today. Journeys are built from Episodes, Flashcards, Coaching, Roleplays and Challenges. Interviews are run through Studies and are not part of the activity and progression reporting in Insights.
Can the AI ask follow-up questions?
Yes. It can ask the respondent to develop a line of reasoning, explain why something is difficult or give a concrete example – within the frames of the interview guide.
Can customers be interviewed?
Yes. Studies can use Interviews to gather qualitative customer perspectives on, for example, the customer journey, recurring friction, choices, experiences and needs.
Can employees be interviewed?
Yes. Customer-facing employees can be interviewed about what happens in the customer interaction, which situations are difficult and which ways of working are effective – or about what feels secure and difficult after training. Experts can be interviewed to capture experience-based knowledge.
Can Interviews be used after a launch or a change?
Yes, as a debrief: a Study run after the launch that captures what happened, what came as a surprise and what needs following up.
Can Interviews be used for oral knowledge tests?
That is assessment mode: the interviewer remains neutral while knowledge areas, questions and assessment criteria are defined in an Assessment. Assessments is in development.
What output do we get?
Each Interview can give transcripts and structured answers. The purpose then decides which compilation or assessment is made of the material – in a Study, summaries, key findings, topic coverage and suggested actions.
Does Interviews replace human interviews?
Not always. Human interviews remain important in sensitive, complex and strategic contexts. AI interviews are particularly useful when the same structured setup needs to reach many people.
How is data and personal information handled?
Personal information and interview answers are handled according to your agreement and the chosen setup. Get in touch and we’ll go through what applies to your area of use.
Book a demo.
Which question do you need better answers to?
Feel free to think about a real need beforehand.
Do you want to understand what happens in the customer interaction, after a launch or after training?
Then we’ll show you how a Study works.
Do you want to assess whether defined knowledge or ability is in place?
Then we’ll show you how assessment works in Popscale today and where Assessments stands.
In both cases it starts with a good Interview.
We’ll show you how the interview guide is built, how the follow-up questions work and what output you can get.