AI Tool of the Week: Meet Conveo, an AI-powered interviewer for smarter market research

In today’s fast-changing market, understanding customers quickly and accurately is more important than ever.

Traditional research methods are often slow, expensive, and difficult to scale, leaving many companies with incomplete insights—or none at all.

But what if there was a smarter way?

In this edition of “AI tool for the week,” we spotlight an AI tool that’s redefining how brands connect with their audiences.

Meet Conveo—the AI-powered solution that aims to transform customer research.

Backed by Y Combinator and founded in 2024, this platform is removing the biggest obstacles in customer research with AI-led video interviews.

Conveo: AI-driven market research

Founded by Dieter De Mesmaeker and Henrik Van Hove, Conveo is a pioneering AI-driven market research company emerging from Y Combinator’s Summer 2024 Batch.

Conveo’s multimodal AI video interviewer enables companies to conduct hundreds of in-depth customer interviews overnight, in any language, and at a fraction of the cost.

By automating the entire research process—from project set-up to AI-driven interviewing and instant analysis—Conveo delivers real-time insights 100x faster than conventional methods, often spotting connections humans would overlook.

CEO Dieter De Mesmaeker states, “We combine decades-long research and strategic experience with deep technical expertise. Most of our competitors are only strong in one of the two areas whereas both are critical.”

Just ask Conveo’s AI coworker a business question, and it will find relevant existing knowledge, launch new research, and deliver a complete analysis within hours.

How does it work?

At its core, Conveo uses advanced AI models to conduct and analyze many voice interviews.

The AI interviewer asks thoughtful follow-up questions based on participants’ answers, combining scalability with intelligence.

Conveo also makes research more accessible. High-quality research requires a lot of effort and skills, from setting up to interviewing and analyzing.

The company’s platform includes built-in assistants to help users at every step, allowing them to stay in control.

This support helps researchers work faster and makes research available to marketing, product development, and other teams.

With Conveo, businesses can better understand their customers, leading to improved decision-making and the creation of better products and experiences.

Conveo’s AI behaves like a human researcher, having personal conversations, while following a topic guide, and asking deeper questions based on responses.

More than 50 per cent of valuable insights come from AI-driven follow-ups.

• Video Moderation & AI Analysis: AI structures, translates, and codes responses, analyzing transcripts to identify key themes and insights.
• Accessible to everyone: Everyone in the organization can talk to Conveo’s customer insights base and launch new research.
• Reliable Data, No Hallucinations: A core focus is data quality. Each insight and data point links back to the original transcript and video.

Use cases

At present, top brands like Unilever, Orange, Sanofi, and Google rely on Conveo to run hundreds of AI-powered video interviews across use cases, from behavioral research to innovation and UX, branding, communication, and customer experience.

According to Conveo, its tool can be used in various applications, including:

Marketing

Test advertising ideas, brand messages, and how customers view them.

Product Management

Understand how users behave, get feedback on new features, and find out why customers leave or are unhappy.

User Research

Perform thorough usability tests and discuss user behaviors and challenges.

Customer Insights/Consumer Insights

Gather a complete understanding of consumers to guide strategic choices.

CEO and Co-founder Dieter De Mesmaeker adds, “We can’t imagine anyone doing it the old way two years from now. 90% of the time in qualitative research is spent on activities that can be automated, so researchers can spend time actually creating value from these insights.”

Recently, the company raised $5.3M (approximately €4.8M) in a seed funding round backed by Y Combinator, 6 Degrees Capital, and others to transform the market research industry. 

CEO and Co-founder Dieter De Mesmaeker adds, “We can’t imagine anyone doing it the old way two years from now. 90% of the time in qualitative research is spent on activities that can be automated, so researchers can spend time actually creating value from these insights.”