Addressing the elephant in the room: researcher fears

It didn’t take long after the announcement for questions to start bubbling up across LinkedIn, Reddit, and the broader research ops community. Would this acquisition water down the independent, researcher-first spirit that User Interviews had built? Would tools like Research Hub survive? 

Kate brought these questions straight to the table—and Basel and Baran didn’t shy away.

“User Interviews will still be available as a standalone product,” Basel confirmed. “If people want to use it with another tool, they still can. What we hope is that the combined experience with UserTesting becomes the best choice—not the only one.”

Baran added that their “job number one” is not to screw up what’s already working.

“Basil and his team have built a phenomenal company and product,” he said. “We want to take the best of both and deliver something even more seamless, powerful, and customer-friendly.”

The blending of panels and platforms

One of the biggest practical implications of the UserTesting acquisition of User Interviews is how the two companies’ research panels and technology stacks will be integrated. It’s not a simple matter of mashing together databases; it’s more like combining two ecosystems with different but complementary strengths.

Baran outlined a vision for a unified panel and technology stack that leverages the best fraud detection, participant targeting, and profiling from both sides.

“We’re not just dumping both panels into a bucket,” he explained. “There’s a lot of nuance, and we’re going to be thoughtful about how we bring them together. It’s going to result in more opportunities for participants, not fewer.”

A future-proof foundation for AI and scaled insights

As AI continues to reshape how research is conducted and insights are delivered, both leaders emphasized that this acquisition positions them to meet those challenges head-on. The goal? Make research workflows smarter, faster, and more deeply integrated into product and design decisions.

Among other investments on the roadmap:

• An embedded Figma integration, allowing designers to recruit, launch tests, and analyze results—all without leaving Figma
• Enhanced survey and unmoderated testing capabilities
• AI-first test creation tools using natural language
• Continued improvements to live interviews and the participant experience

These aren’t just upgrades—they’re infrastructure for the next generation of customer-centric innovation.

As Baran put it, “We think more insights are required, not less. And the change that’s happening in the industry demands better tools, better access, and better integration of those insights into decision-making.”

Supporting researchers at every stage—from solo to scaled

A major theme of the episode was inclusivity—not in the diversity sense, but in how the newly combined company plans to support every kind of research team, from massive enterprise departments to teams of one or two.

One of the things UserTesting liked about User Interviews was how easy it was for anyone to recruit and get some benefit through the pay-as-you-go model. “We think that’s a great way for people to get into research, for people to get access to great participants,” Baran said. “We see it as a great on ramp. And if they want to scale with further, that’s fine. But they’ll be able to buy user interviews just like they are today.”

This commitment to flexibility also extends to integrations. Kate raised a pointed question from the Cha-Cha Club community: Would User Interviews continue to support integrations with competing survey or testing tools?

“We will,” Baran said. “The integrations that the User Interviews platform has today with other tools will remain and customers will be able to use the tool of their choice. I’d say future investment, we’re going to be very focused on improving the UserTesting and User Interviews integration and making that seamless and, hopefully, preferred. But we will support the existing integrations.”

Why this isn’t just another tech consolidation

It’s easy to be cynical. Mergers and acquisitions in tech often lead to frustrations in the community. But as Kate noted, this one feels different.

“There’s a lot of emotional feedback out there,” she said. “But what I’m hearing here is a partnership—one built on alignment, not absorption.”

That sentiment was echoed by both Baran and Basel. And while they acknowledged that not everything will be perfect, they encouraged the community to hold them accountable.

Baran suggested they bring Kate back onto the podcast a year from now for a retrospective and look at the report card. “We’d love straight A’s,” Baran said, “but business is hard. I don’t know if we’ll get everything perfect, but we certainly want to do our best and listen to customers in the community.”

Episode links

• The 2026 experience survival guide: scaling human insight across every team — An on-demand webinar about transforming experience research with AI and integrated tools for scalable insight.
• Take your research to the next level — an on-demand webinar on elevating research strategy using UserTesting’s features and techniques.
• The complete guide to user interviews — a practical guide to conducting user interviews as a key UX research method.
• The ux research methodology guidebook — a broader guide explaining research methods, useful in the context of structured insight workflows.
• The State of User Research — In this User Interviews report, we surveyed 485 researchers across the globe about their research identity, craft, strategy, salary, tools, and support.
• UserTesting acquires User Interviews to strengthen the industry’s most comprehensive customer insights solution for the AI era — official press release about the acquisition discussed in the podcast.
• The future of customer insights at UserTesting in 2026 — a podcast episode about forthcoming platform capabilities, AI integration, and scaling insights.
• UserTesting and User Interviews join forces to strengthen the industry’s most trusted source of customer insights — a blog post about the acquisition and how it expands insights access and scale.
• Kate Towsey on LinkedIn
• Baran Erkel on LinkedIn
• Basel Fakhoury on LinkedIn
• Kate’s book Research that Scales
• Kate’s website
• Nathan Isaacs on LinkedIn