Discuss Rolls Out Upgrades and Launches Personas

In Seattle, market insights platform Discuss has announced three new capabilities designed to speed up the answering of business questions. They include the beta launch of Virtual Personas.

Discuss merged last month with research software firm Voxco, creating a company with more than 200 employees in sixteen countries, and promising an integration of qualitative research expertise, survey technology and AI-powered analytics. Its solutions include AI Agents, human-led research options, and combined quant and open-ended analysis.

The firm also announced expanded use cases and customization for its Interview Agent tool, and the introduction of integrated Data Visualization within Insights Agent, allowing research teams to gather, analyze and test insights around the clock.

Discuss stresses that Virtual Personas are not a replacement for live research, but create 'a new and needed layer between raw intuition and formal studies', especially useful for refining and sense checking early ideas, and for identifying potential friction points before committing to a full research cycle. Each persona is rooted in real research inputs from past qualitative sessions, along with demographic profiles, quant reports and behavioral indicators. Personas can be custom-built using individually selected sources, and enhanced further as work progresses, using teams' own research, attributes and/or market context, so as to match unique audiences, verticals or scenarios.

The firm's Interview Agent now supports a broader range of research needs while giving teams more precise control over how conversations unfold. Researchers can now select moderator voice and tone, adjust probing depth, and add custom instructions that shape the interview flow, depending on specific objectives.

Adding Data Visualization directly into Insights Agent means users can now see and dig further into 'quantitative-style visuals'. These include emerging themes, with AI reviewing every response, grouping similar ideas, and selecting real quotes and clips to bring them to life.

'Our new Virtual Personas, expanded Interview Agent, and Data Visualization all bring researchers closer to real human understanding while accelerating their ability to act,' says CEO Daniel Graff-Radford (pictured). 'This is the kind of momentum we envisioned when Voxco joined forces with Discuss - a foundation that brings the future of insights into reach for every team.'

Home page: www.discuss.io .