AI focus groups, run as many interviews at once
AI focus groups at Moderators mean many independent one-to-one conversations, led by an AI moderator and combined into a single synthesis of what people agree on, where they differ and what they said. It is not a live group call with participants talking to each other. If you want the themes a focus group produces without the room, this is how to get them.
What decided it for you in the end?
The other vendor could start the same week.
Who needed it that week?
Finance did, because our launch date moved up.
Quote from the interview
“Setup took two days and nobody had time.”
Is this a live group discussion?
No, and it is better to say so plainly. Each participant opens your link and talks with the AI moderator alone. There is no shared video room and no moment where one person reacts to another. What you get is a set of separate conversations around the same guide, followed by a summary across all of them.
Why would that serve the same goal?
A focus group exists to find patterns in how a segment thinks. You can find patterns by listening to many people, and a one-to-one format has real advantages. Nobody waits for a turn. Nobody copies the loudest voice. A hesitant participant answers fully, because no one is watching.
What do you set up?
Describe the topic and the group you want to hear from. Moderators writes a discussion guide with the questions and the follow-ups. You share the link with the segment, such as small business owners who use your invoicing feature, and each person responds in their own time.
What do you read at the end?
Themes are ordered by how many conversations raised them, with direct quotes under each. Where participants disagree, the disagreement shows up as separate themes with their own quotes, so you can see both camps instead of an average.
- Which reactions to a concept were shared and which were isolated.
- The words people used before you suggested any.
- Where the segment splits and which side each quote comes from.
Where does the independent format help?
Early concepts, naming, messaging and reasons for leaving all benefit from unfiltered individual answers. Groupthink is a known risk of live sessions, where the first confident opinion tends to set the tone. Independent interviews keep every answer clean, and the synthesis shows you the spread.
When should you still hold a live group?
When the question depends on people reacting to each other, such as how a community debates a norm or how a household negotiates a purchase, you need a live moderator and a room. Moderators does not replace that. Many teams use it to find the three questions worth taking into a live session. For the human side of that work, read the focus group moderator guide.
How many people can you hear from?
The Team plan includes 400 chat interviews and 300 voice minutes. A traditional group seats perhaps eight people. A study here can reach hundreds, and you can send different links to different segments to compare how each one answers. See the online focus group platform page for setting up a study, or AI moderated interviews for what happens inside one conversation.
Who brings the participants?
You do. Moderators has no respondent panel and does not recruit. You invite your own customers or contacts with the link.
What does an AI focus group study cost?
Annual billing is the default and takes 50% off. There is no free plan, and a used limit does not return within the period.
- Starter: $99/month, $49.50/month billed annually. 100 chat interviews, 120 voice minutes, 1 seat.
- Team: $249/month, $124.50/month billed annually. 400 chat interviews, 300 voice minutes, 5 seats, custom-branded link.
- Scale: $599/month, $299.50/month billed annually. 1,000 chat interviews, 750 voice minutes, 15 seats, findings repository, API.
- Enterprise: $1,499/month, $749.50/month billed annually. 2,500 chat interviews, 1,800 voice minutes, SSO, roles, SLA, invoices, data retention controls.
A study of 100 chat interviews fits inside Starter. Compare the plans on the pricing page.
Hear a whole segment this week
Run the text demo on the home page to see one conversation, then send your guide to the segment you care about.