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Ask Pillow is built into every study. Ask a question about your interview data in plain language and get an answer grounded in real participant responses, with clickable sources you can trace back to the original transcript.
Ask Pillow was previously called Research Chat. The panel and features are the same.

Open Ask Pillow

Open any study from your dashboard. The Ask Pillow panel sits on the right side of the page. It’s always there, no navigation required. The first time you open a study, a hint points you to it above the analysis tabs.

Ask a question

Type any question about your study:
  • “What are users saying about pricing?”
  • “What frustrates users about checkout?”
  • “How do users feel about onboarding?”
Pillow answers from your actual interviews. Every answer includes source references. Click a source to jump to the original transcript.
Specific questions (“What frustrates users about checkout?”) produce richer answers than broad ones (“Tell me about my users”).

Use quick prompts

When you open the panel, quick prompts help you start without typing:
  • Summarize key findings: an overview of what your interviews reveal
  • Executive summary: a high-level narrative for stakeholders
  • Most requested features: what users want added or improved
  • Interviews we should read: the most valuable interviews for your team
  • Most frequent issues: recurring problems across interviews
Click a prompt to run it.

Manage threads

Use tabs to explore several angles at once:
  • New thread: click + to start a fresh thread
  • Switch threads: click any tab
  • Close a thread: click the x on a tab
  • Reopen past threads: use the history dropdown
Each thread keeps its own history. For example, you might run one thread for product feedback and another for UX issues.

Add context

Focus an answer on a specific slice of your data by attaching context to your next question:
  • From an interview: click Add to chat in the interview header to load that interview
  • From the Overview tab: click Add to chat on a question group to dig into one pattern
Context appears as a pill above the input. Click the x on the pill to remove it before sending.

Read visual evidence

Answers can include charts inline: bar and pie charts that appear automatically when an answer is backed by a specific pattern, so you see the evidence alongside the text.

Filter by metadata

Scope answers to a specific audience segment. Click the filter icon in the input and select metadata values:
  • Locale: filter by participant language
  • Country: filter by location
  • Device: filter by desktop, mobile, or tablet
  • Custom fields: filter by any metadata you passed in
While a filter is active, every answer is scoped to matching interviews. Remove the filter to return to the full dataset.

Share answers

Use Share to send teammates exactly what you want them to see:
  • Share a thread: click Share at the top of the panel
  • Share one answer: click Share on a specific message
When you create a link, choose:
  • Visibility: Organization-only (requires sign-in) or Public (anyone with the link)
  • Expiration: Never, 7 days, or 30 days

Overview

The Overview tab surfaces patterns across your interviews automatically: the questions your agent asked most and how participants answered. Each group shows:
  • Question: the grouped question theme
  • Ask count: how often the agent asked it
  • Answer buckets: how participants responded, as percentages
Look for questions with widely varied answers; they often reveal segments with different needs.
Overview becomes available once a study reaches 100 interviews. When new interviews arrive, a banner shows how many are available, so click Regenerate to update. Before then, you can still ask Pillow about the interviews collected so far.

Small-sample note

When a study has fewer than 10 interviews with replies, Ask Pillow flags that the sample is still small.

Tips for sharper analysis

1

Start broad, then narrow

Run a quick prompt for the high-level view, then ask specific follow-ups.
2

Split topics across threads

Keep one thread per theme so each stays focused.
3

Add context to go deep

Attach an interview or an Overview group when you want the answer to focus on one slice.
4

Share the executive summary

Send stakeholders the high-level narrative instead of the raw transcripts.

What’s next

Review interviews

Read individual interviews in detail.

How insights work

Understand Overview and Ask Pillow.

Track issues

See bugs and requests clustered across interviews.

Broadcast your study

Collect more interviews to strengthen your analysis.