TL;DR:
- Outset, founded by Aaron Cannon and Michael Hess, addresses the challenge of obtaining qualitative user feedback efficiently.
- Traditional methods of user research are time-consuming and resource-intensive.
- Outset utilizes GPT-4, an AI model, to autonomously conduct and synthesize interviews with respondents.
- GPT-4 generates themes, counts responses, and highlights key quotes, streamlining qualitative data analysis.
- Early success stories include WeightWatchers, which conducted over 100 interviews in just 24 hours.
- Outset aims to make user insights more accessible to businesses, especially amid the demand for faster decision-making.
- The company recently secured $3.8 million in funding and plans to expand its team.
- The broader market trend shows a growing demand for AI-powered tools in knowledge work.
Main AI News:
Getting comprehensive responses to qualitative product-related inquiries from users can be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. Aaron Cannon, a former strategist at Deloitte, knows this all too well. His tenure at Deloitte involved extensive research projects that demanded hundreds of laborious hours. However, despite their efforts, the additional time and resources required for scheduling and moderating interviews with clients’ customers became a persistent challenge.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Cannon highlighted the evolving landscape of enterprise decision-making, which now demands swift insights. This pressure has been particularly intense following the workforce disruptions of 2022. The primary concern in the industry today is that the accelerating pace of decision-making may outstrip the capacity of insights teams to keep up. Cannon emphasized the crucial need for researchers to have tools that can expedite and enhance their work.
To address this issue, Cannon partnered with Michael Hess, whom he had met during their tenure at Untapped, a talent recruitment startup. Together, they founded Outset, a Y Combinator-backed company that autonomously conducts and synthesizes interviews.
“The research and insights teams have been disproportionately affected by the recent slowdown and associated layoffs. However, the demand from business leaders for more informed and strategic decisions has not waned. This has led to an expectation of achieving more with fewer resources,” Cannon explained. “This scenario works in favor of Outset, as people turn to technology to amplify their efforts.”
Outset leverages GPT-4, OpenAI’s flagship text-generating AI model, to lead interviews with participants in research studies. The process is straightforward: Outset users create a survey and share the link with potential respondents. Subsequently, Outset, powered by GPT-4, engages with the respondents to seek clarification, probe for detailed answers, and establish a “conversational rapport” for deeper insights.
For every question posed, GPT-4 generates overarching themes, tallies response counts, and highlights notable quotes to “reveal the narrative,” as Cannon described it.
“Currently, much of the labor involved in collecting and analyzing qualitative data is manual. In a way, we are competing with the late nights I used to spend reading transcripts and scheduling interviews as a consultant,” Cannon observed. “We believe that Outset will expand the research market, making user insights faster and more accessible to a wider range of teams within the business.”
Although Outset is still in its early stages, it has already achieved notable success with a household brand: WeightWatchers. Within a span of just 24 hours, WeightWatchers conducted and synthesized over 100 interviews. These results are now being utilized to propose a new user segmentation framework within the company.
Cannon revealed, “We are currently collaborating with 15 enterprise insights teams, including companies like Opendoor and other major consumer-oriented firms, to enable them to make more informed and swifter user-centric decisions than ever before.”
Having recently secured $3.8 million in funding, led by Adverb Ventures with participation from Weekend Fund and Jack Altman, Outset is poised for growth. Cannon disclosed their plans to expand the team from four full-time employees to six by year-end.
Cannon concluded, “We have just completed our seed funding round, and with our lean operating approach, we are well-prepared to navigate the challenges ahead. Despite the broader economic slowdown, there is a growing demand for AI-powered tools in everyday knowledge work, which provides us with another favorable factor. With our funding, cost-effective operations, and the tailwinds at our back, we are well-positioned to weather any challenges that come our way.”
Source: Outset
Conclusion:
Outset’s innovative use of GPT-4 to streamline user surveys and qualitative data analysis presents a promising solution to the challenges faced by insights teams in the rapidly evolving business landscape. This technology-driven approach not only accelerates decision-making but also expands the market for research tools, making user insights more accessible and impactful. Outset’s success stories and recent funding underscore its potential to shape the future of business intelligence and data-driven decision-making.
