How Away Used Outset to Conduct 75 Interviews Overnight — With a Team of One

The Solution: Deep, Dynamic Interviews Powered by AI

Outset's AI-moderated research was designed for speed and scale. Admittedly, Jennifer was initially skeptical, but she quickly discovered that the AI interviewer could do more than just ask questions. She was impressed — and a bit surprised — by the AI moderator's ability to dynamically adapt to participant responses, probe for context, and make users feel heard. The AI delivered human-level depth, without the human-level constraints.

“I got the best of both worlds," said Lien. "The qualitative nuance is similar to a human moderator, but also the scale of a large number of respondents."

The Results: From 20 Interviews a Week to 75 Overnight

The efficiency gains were dramatic. With Outset, Away completed 75 interviews overnight — no scheduling, no moderating, and no burnout. Just as important, Outset's synthesis tools let Jennifer skip hours of footage review and dive straight into the biggest takeaways.

What used to take a month took less than two weeks.

That speed and scale proved to be a game-changer. Jennifer’s initial hypothesis was that shoppers were using AI mostly at the beginning of their buyer journey for product discovery. But thanks to Outset's interviews, she learned something very different: customers were turning to AI tools for mid-journey decision-making — comparing products, evaluating features, and narrowing down options.

Away now had a clear view of where customer behavior was headed, but one finding in particular sparked conversation across the entire company: 98% of participants said they planned to expand their use of AI for shopping. It was such a decisive finding that the UX team had no trouble getting buy-in for AI-moderated research on future projects. In fact, Away is using Outset for a series of similar research projects so they will always be one step ahead of AI-guided shopping trends. 

The Impact: Research That Never Comes with Tradeoffs

For Away, Outset is more than a tool — it's a strategic advantage. They're able to act on emergent research needs without disrupting the roadmap or being forced to choose between depth and speed.

"Previously, you always had to think about qualitative research or quantitative research," explained Ben Schweitzer, Head of UX. "Nowadays, with Outset, we always think about both and how we can leverage the same tool and the same research to answer both types of questions more easily and more efficiently."

Outset is now "a key part" of Away’s research stack. The UX team uses it to move faster, go deeper, and respond with agility, all with a single researcher at the helm.

"It was really important for us to ensure that Jennifer is as efficient and effective as possible in her role, and Outset really enabled us to enhance her capabilities and allow us to get more research done," said Schweitzer.

"It has really helped me grow as a researcher and as an individual," added Lien. "Being able to focus my energy and leaving the interview process and the first analysis portion to Outset has helped me grow in my career."