How do founders run and analyze customer interviews with AI?

Do your first 10 to 15 interviews yourself using Mom Test rules (past behaviour, not opinions about your idea), then let AI take over the mechanical work: drafting non-leading question guides, transcribing, and clustering themes across transcripts. Claude and ChatGPT are excellent at turning a pile of raw transcripts into themes, quotes, and contradictions in minutes, and AI-moderated platforms can then run hundreds of consistent interviews once you know what to ask. Treat AI's themes as a first draft to check against the recordings, not as the conclusion.

On the AI map, 29 October 2026 Research and search

Go deeper20 sources

How To Talk To Users | Startup School
Y Combinator (Gustaf Alströmer) · Video · 2022

The canonical 17 minutes on user interviews; everything the AI helps with builds on this.

Watch it here
How to Talk to Users with Gustaf Alströmer | Startup School (podcast)
Y Combinator · Podcast · 2023

The same essential material in audio form for commute listening.

Listen here
[The Mom Test] AI can't run your customer interviews (but it *can* help in other ways)
Rob Fitzpatrick · Video · 2024

The Mom Test author himself draws the line between what AI should and should not do in discovery.

Watch it here
Ailyze Tutorial: Turn Interview Transcripts Into Themes & Visuals Instantly
Ailyze · Video · 2025

Watch transcripts become themes and visuals, the core analysis move this question is about.

Watch it here
This AI Transcribes & Analyzes Interviews in Minutes
YouTube creator (research tools) · Video · 2025

End-to-end demo of the transcribe-then-analyze loop founders can copy.

Watch it here
60 Customer Discovery Questions (Mom Test-Approved)
Perspective AI · Guide · 2026

A ready question bank that keeps your AI-drafted guides non-leading.
The Mom Test for Customer Interviews: How to Ask Questions That Get Real Answers
Koji · Article · 2026

Updates Mom Test practice for the AI-moderated interview era.

All 20 sources

How to Scale the Mom Test with AI Interviews
Prelaunch · Article · 2025

The hybrid model: humans build intuition first, AI scales the interviewing after.
Using ChatGPT and other LLMs to analyse interviews and qualitative data
Skimle · Article · 2025

An honest technical account of what LLM qualitative analysis gets right and wrong.
AI User Research Skill 101: A Claude Skill That Turns Raw Interview Dumps Into Themes
Sid Saladi · Article · 2025

A reusable Claude workflow that converts messy transcripts into themes and actions in 90 seconds.
Analyze Transcripts with Claude AI (Free Prompt)
GenAI University · Guide · 2025

A copy-paste transcript analysis prompt to start with before building anything fancier.
AI Customer Interview Analysis: Mining Discovery Calls for Intel with Claude Code
MarketBetter · Article · 2026

Shows Claude Code processing many interviews in parallel, the power-user version of this workflow.
A Market Researcher's Review: Claude
Cascade Insights · Article · 2025

A professional research firm's assessment of Claude for qualitative analysis, limits included.
How a UX Researcher Uses AI in Their Daily Workflow
User Interviews · Article · 2025

A working researcher's real AI workflow rather than a tool vendor's pitch.
Introducing Anthropic Interviewer
Anthropic · Article · 2025

Primary research on AI running interviews at scale and feeding results back to humans.
Outset: The AI-Moderated Research Platform
Outset (YC-backed) · Tool · 2025

A leading AI-moderated interview platform for when you need dozens of interviews this week.
How to Scale User Interviews to Large Panels
Listen Labs · Article · 2026

How AI moderation removes the depth-versus-scale trade-off in discovery.
MomTestAI: Validate Customer Discovery Questions
MomTestAI · Tool · 2025

Paste your interview questions and it flags the leading ones before you embarrass yourself.
Customer Discovery Interviews: The Founder Guide
User Intuition · Guide · 2025

A full founder reference for discovery interviews with AI assistance woven in.
How to Talk to Users (YC Startup Library)
Y Combinator · Guide · 2022

The written companion to the video, easy to excerpt into your AI question-drafting prompts.