June 24, 2025
In 2024, Glaut coined the term AIMI - AI-Moderated Interviews - to introduce a new research methodology made possible by a new generation of natural language technology.
Just as CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing) and CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing) marked previous leaps in data collection, AIMI mark a new one: open-ended, AI-moderated, one-on-one interviews that adapt to each participant in real time and scale, without sacrificing depth.
We’ve now published our first whitepaper: “AI-Moderated Interviews in Practice: Early Evidence and Open Questions”
This AIMI whitepaper is a practitioner’s guide: clear, evidence-based, and built for researchers.
AIMIs (AI-Moderated interviews) aren’t “surveys with a friendlier interface.” They rethink how conversations are designed, guided, and analyzed without a human moderator in the room, but with the researcher fully in control. Every response is traceable, every theme is editable, and every insight stays accountable to the original voice that shared it.
We don’t see AIMI as a replacement for in-depth interviews or a perfect fit for every case, but we do see them opening up a new methodological middle ground. This paper shares the early signals, the open questions, and where we’re heading next from format comparisons to interpretative benchmarking.