5 non-negotiables for the modern research team
AI is accelerating software creation: can user research keep up?
The rise of AI has fundamentally changed the speed of software development, with some teams now relying on agentic engineering to write up to 95% of their code.
As product development accelerates, there's a growing risk that crucial user research will be skipped to save time.
In a recent webinar, Baran Erkel (Chief Strategy Officer, UserTesting) and Basel Fakhoury (CEO and Co-founder, User Interviews) unpacked this critical industry shift and revealed how their newly merged platforms are addressing it.
Here are the top five takeaways from that conversation, you can watch the full webinar recording linked at the bottom to catch the exclusive product demos and a sneak peek at upcoming features.
1. AI demands more customer insights, not less
The AI-driven explosion of software means teams must get closer to their customers, not further away.
As Basel noted, "AI will increase the amount of software, that means there should be an increase in demand for research and insights on that software."
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Better together: Unlocking deeper audience access with UserTesting + User Interviews
However, when product and engineering teams are moving at breakneck speed, they often won't slow down for research. It’s up to modern research teams to keep pace if they want to stay relevant. As Baran emphasized "things are just moving much, much faster, and research has to move faster."
2. Research must embed directly into daily workflows
To keep up with development, research can no longer be a standalone destination. Instead, it needs to be embedded seamlessly into the environments where builders are already working.
As Baran explained, "Insights and insights capabilities like ours need to transition from being a tool that's just a destination tool, to being really integrated into the workflows of the way teams work."
For instance, UserTesting's release of an embedded experience within Figma allows designers to get insights "where they work and make it really easy."
3. Faster creation requires highly niche targeting
Because teams can now build products at an unprecedented rate, there is an increased need to target highly precise, bespoke user segments.
Basel illustrated this shift: "If you can build 10 tools in the amount of time it's taking to do three, maybe those tools will make you think about your personas and who you're building for in a more precise way."
To support this, researchers can now utilize a premium criteria set to find these exact users. Mike McDowell, principal platform marketing manager at UserTesting, pointed out in his demo during the webinar, "Under demographics, now you can select disabilities. You can say, hey. I need to recruit people who have vision impairment or blindness... I want people who have screen readers."
4. Advanced fraud detection is non-negotiable
Offering compensation to participants on the internet inherently attracts bad actors, a problem compounded by the rise of AI tools.
"This space of recruiting humans and offering humans money, especially on the Internet, attracts fraud,” Baran said. “That is never ending, and it's only getting harder, especially with AI tools that people can use."
To combat this, User Interviews leverages advanced technology to verify participants. Basel highlighted that they use a "second algorithm that does fraud detection, and that's using tens of millions of data points to make sure people are who they say they are."
5. Researchers need ultimate flexibility and control
The integration of these platforms brings highly requested features that give researchers ultimate control, such as manual recruiting.
Mike explained this provides "The ability to review participants before they move forward... This is critical. If you're doing live conversations, in-depth interviews, diary studies, you want to make sure that you have the right people before you get to that live conversation."
Furthermore, researchers can now set custom, localized incentive amounts tailored to specific tasks. Mike notes this is essential when "maybe there's more involved. Maybe you ask someone to go to a retail store or a supermarket and do some testing there... Or you know, you just ask someone to go out into their driveway, get in their car... and show you the infotainment system."
As Baran concluded, "giving the user the freedom to set any incentive amount is very powerful in User Interviews. That allows you to reach almost anyone."
Additional learning
- Effective AI: how to choose the right generative AI features—and build them fast. This on-demand webinar covers how teams can use AI responsibly while maintaining customer understanding and rapid validation workflows.
- Modern UX research in action: 10 research stories. This guide focuses on modernizing research practices, scaling insights, and helping teams move faster while staying customer-centered.
- Why the UserTesting acquisition of User Interviews signals a bold new future for UX research. This podcast episode discusses the acquisition of User Interviews, what it means for researchers, and how it shapes the future of UX research and customer insights.
- Which participant recruitment method should I use for user research? This blog post explores various participant recruitment methods, examining the pros and cons of each to help you determine the best approach for your specific research needs.
Watch the full webinar
These insights are just the tip of the iceberg. To see real-time demonstrations of how to use UserTesting and User Interviews together today, plus an exclusive look at the deeply integrated platform coming in the near future, don't miss out on seeing these groundbreaking tools in action.
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