Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Improving Democratized Research with CustomGPTs and Gems
Summary
One of the biggest concerns researchers have when having any designer or product manager conduct their own research is that they'll ask biased or bad questions. In theory bad research done by a product team should be accountable to them but since there's a team named "research," that can inevitably fallback on us. We've all offered training to teams at some point but you can lead a horse to water but not force them to drink. Enter AI - your partners will want to use it because it helps them get something they don't usually do (write discussion guides) faster and by writing custom Gems or GPTs, the research team can keep consistency, ensure the AI pushes back in the right way for quality, etc. In this session, I'll cover how to build these and the instruction sets I provide to the tools.
Key Insights
-
•
Custom AI GPTs can provide guardrails to help non-researchers conduct higher-quality user research.
-
•
Splitting AI tools into multiple specialized GPTs prevents context overload and hallucinations.
-
•
Researchers save over 80% of their time by using AI to support routine research planning and execution.
-
•
Automating recruitment and incentive tracking through Google Sheets and Zapier reduces manual effort.
-
•
AI can improve research consistency by enforcing unbiased question guidelines and avoiding leading or double-barreled questions.
-
•
Limitations remain in AI’s ability to synthesize large transcript sets and provide fully accurate quotes.
-
•
Democratizing research allows product managers and designers to engage more closely with customers while researchers focus on strategic insights.
-
•
Avoiding shadow AI tools is critical for organizational security and compliance.
-
•
Video analysis and unmoderated usability testing can now be partially automated using custom GPT Gems.
-
•
The future of UX research may shift toward researchers providing ‘forest-level’ insights while PMs/designers handle ‘tree-level’ tactical research.
Notable Quotes
"We call ourselves a B2C CRM: helping businesses connect to their consumers and keep the relationship going."
"Before AI, research teams spent over a quarter of their time consulting about research questions, often repeating themselves."
"One of my biggest pet peeves is biased questions; I hate the term validation, I prefer evaluation."
"If we’re not helping with the decision, why are they paying us what they’re paying us? That’s the essence of research."
"We want to make sure researchers spend one hour in office hours, not eight to twelve hours a week helping others."
"Designers and product managers often want more control, and custom AI gives them that in research tasks."
"The tools are meeting people where they’re already going: ChatGPT or Gemini, rather than forcing new platforms."
"Shadow AI usage is a huge security risk in public companies and should be managed by IT and leadership."
"We ask our AI assistants to explicitly avoid leading and double-barreled questions to ensure unbiased research."
"The future is researchers painting the larger picture while PMs and designers focus on deep, tactical user insights."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"You have to push against 200,000 years of evolution to encourage researchers to contribute to long-term repositories."
Ben Davies Matt Duignan Andrew Michael Dr. Emily DiLeoExpert Panel: The Principles of Research Repository Design
March 11, 2022
"We are open source. Our work is public. You can fork it and have the code. That’s pretty fair as taxpayers."
Russ UngerGetting Out from Under Everyone: How to Escape the Paralysis of Getting Started
June 8, 2016
"Asking for help and engaging is actually a sign of growing confidence among teams."
Elizabeth Sklar Jessica ShengCo-creating research enablement with your tech org: a case study
March 10, 2026
"Transformation research is a transformative force."
Victor UdoewaTheme One Intro
March 27, 2023
"If your topic is already tackled exceptionally by a prior book, go deeper or wait until the market shifts."
Louis RosenfeldCoffee with Lou: Should You Write a (UX) Book?
March 7, 2024
"Two researchers can’t come close to digging into the customer problems for 17 product teams."
Erin May Roberta Dombrowski Laura Oxenfeld Brooke HintonDistributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
March 10, 2022
"Designers need better training to work with off-the-shelf enterprise software like Sitecore, Salesforce, and SharePoint."
Alexandra SchmidtEnterprise UX Playbook
December 1, 2022
"We were spending time defending the meaning of words rather than discussing the content of the work."
Saara Kamppari-Miller"Prototype" vs "Prototype"--Breaking Down and Rebuilding Our Understanding of What We Do
October 24, 2019
"Innovation equals creativity times execution."
Sam YenDriving Organizational Change Through Design? Do more of this and less of that
June 9, 2017
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How could universal acceptance and personalized learning journeys change college admissions and education?
How can UX practitioners build influence within healthcare organizations where clinical outcomes dominate decision-making?
What are practical strategies to build influence for research insights across multiple dispersed teams?