How Outset and Prolific enable AI-powered qualitative research at quantitative speed

Outset’s AI-moderated research platform can interview thousands of participants at once to generate rich qualitative insights at the speed and scale of a survey. By integrating directly with Prolific’s API, Outset now enables customers like Microsoft and Nestlé to access thousands of participants instantly and collect insights in less than 24 hours, instead of 3-4 weeks.

The challenge: Bridging the gap between survey scale and interview depth

Traditional research often forces teams into a difficult trade-off. You can run large-scale surveys that reach thousands of people, but only scratch the surface of what they think and feel. Or you can conduct one-on-one interviews that offer deep insight into motivations and experiences, but you’ll likely only speak to a handful of people, and it can take weeks to complete.

Outset, an AI-moderated research platform, solves this compromise by enabling qualitative research at quantitative speed.

The platform conducts in-depth interviews and automatically synthesizes the results. Companies like Microsoft, Uber, Away, Nestlé, and WeightWatchers use it for everything from concept testing to usability studies. And with moderation available in more than 40 languages, teams can run multilingual research that used to be slow, costly, or simply unrealistic.

“For the first time, there’s an alternative,” explains Aaron Cannon, CEO and co-founder of Outset. “Now you can actually get that qualitative depth, but do it at the speed and scale that’s only ever been possible with a survey.”

But Outset quickly realized that solving the moderation challenge wasn’t enough. As scale was unlocked, it was imperative that access to participants could support that new scale.

Customers needed participants, not just a platform

“People would say, ‘Great, but where are your participants?’” Aaron recalls. “They didn’t want to manage recruitment separately. They needed us to take care of it end-to-end.”

Outset didn't want to build a panel from scratch or rely on expensive white-glove recruitment agencies. But they also couldn't compromise on quality.

"When you're doing AI-moderated research, the quality has to be good," Aaron says. "If customers are using Outset with a panel that's not high-quality, then Outset doesn't look good."

Traditional quantitative panels weren't designed for the level of engagement required in AI-moderated interviews. These panels optimize for speed and volume. But in AI-moderated interviews, participants need to engage in full video conversations, share motivations, and provide thoughtful responses. On the other hand, qualitative recruitment agencies weren’t cost-efficient enough for asynchronous, global research run with thousands of participants.

"You need this combination of quality and scale, or quality and cost efficiency," Aaron explains. "The old school quantitative recruitment panels don't offer near the quality that you want when you're really doing qualitative research. But at the same time, qualitative panels are often overpriced for something that's automated and asynchronous."

Outset needed a partner who could deliver:

• High-quality participants willing to engage in thoughtful video interviews
• Scale to support hundreds or thousands of interviews per project
• Cost efficiency that works for automated, asynchronous research
• Global reach across multiple languages and markets

The solution: 200k+ verified participants, integrated seamlessly

Outset decided to partner with Prolific. "What we found was that Prolific has low cost in the grand scheme of qualitative research, but higher quality," Aaron says. "That combination was exactly what's needed for AI-moderated research."

Prolific's pool of over 200,000 quality-verified participants provided the active, engaged people Outset needed for video interviews and thoughtful responses. But unlike traditional qualitative recruitment, the cost structure made it practical to scale from tens of interviews to thousands.

For Outset's customers, this meant they could finally use AI moderation as intended - at scale, without compromising the quality of human insights.

Built for multilingual research across the globe

One of the biggest advantages of AI moderation is the ability to remove language, geographic, and time zone barriers. Outset's AI moderator speaks 40+ languages, opening up truly global research at scale.

"One of the amazing things about AI-moderated research is that AI can speak different languages. That actually means you could do multilingual research at the speed and scale well beyond even what you could do with traditional English research," Aaron explains.

With Outset’s multilingual AI capabilities combined with Prolific's global participant base, major brands like Nestlé can test concepts across European and Latin American markets. This research would have been expensive, slow, or even impossible with traditional methods.

Customers can run research end-to-end within Outset

Outset integrated Prolific's API directly into their platform, making recruitment totally seamless.

When customers create a project in Outset, they build their discussion guide, then move to the recruit tab. From there, they can tap into Prolific's participant pool with a few clicks.

"You set some filters about pre-screening criteria, like people of a certain age or different demographics. You make these choices, hit publish, and the rest is done for you," Aaron explains.

Before this integration, Outset was manually running studies in Prolific for customers. The API integration removed that friction entirely, letting customers launch studies themselves in minutes.

The results: Research accelerated from weeks to hours

Key outcomes:

• 10,000+ interviews conducted through the Prolific and Outset integration
• 24-hour turnaround vs 3-4 weeks for traditional qualitative research
• Thousands of participants per study vs 10-20 with traditional methods
• Multilingual research made practical across European markets

Companies are building better products with more insight from real people

The Outset and Prolific partnership represents something bigger than operational efficiency. It's about fundamentally expanding who gets heard when companies make decisions.

"You're basically building a product, you're building a service, you're trying to optimize your customer experience - and you're actually able to listen to feedback from a lot more people," Aaron explains. “And you’re able to do it much faster. You could constantly be doing it.”

This shift from listening to 10 people over several weeks to hearing from hundreds in 24 hours means companies can make better decisions, faster. They can test concepts earlier and much more thoroughly in the development process, identify problems before launch, and gain a deeper understanding of their customers in new markets they're expanding into.

“Before you know it, over a year, you've listened to so many more customers and taken that into account so quickly,” Aaron says. “And sometimes, that’s the difference between a very successful product or company and an unsuccessful one.”

Ready to scale your qualitative research?

If you're building a research platform or tool that needs access to engaged, verified participants who can deliver thoughtful qualitative insights at scale, Prolific can help.

Partner with Prolific to learn how you can integrate our participant pool into your solution and unlock new possibilities for your customers.