Voice Survey Option Added to Firefish's QualifyAI

London-based Firefish has enhanced its bespoke AI-powered qualitative tool QualifyAI, which is now voice-enabled.

QualifyAI, which recently won the ESOMAR 2025 Award for Excellence in Global Research, was launched as a separate company in April last year by Firefish execs Jem Fawcus and Richard Owen, with a mission 'to automate qualitative research without stripping it of its humanity'. Its approach combines trained AI moderators with humans at Firefish - the former can conduct interviews with dozens or hundreds of people in 'a matter of days' across markets and languages, while the latter design topic guides, fine-tune the set-up, 'engage with the data' and handle the interpretation. Firefish says this leads to 'a sharp, strategic perspective, with a clear direction on what to do next.'

Adding the facility to conduct interviews verbally 'transforms qualitative research', according to the company, 'by capturing richer data with minimum friction.' 'We're at the forefront of AI innovation,' says Head of AI Research Adrien Weinert (pictured), 'but we know the real magic happens when AI and human expertise work together. And now, QualifyAI is voice-enabled, making us even more human, as we're able to collect the subtle nuances of human expression - the hesitations, the tone, and much more - all that gets missed when typing. As we like to say, QualifyAI is the only AI tool that's not really about AI.'

The company is online at www.qualifyai.co .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.