Overview
Creating a study involves these steps:- Start a new study and describe your objective
- Review and refine AI-generated goals through conversation
- Configure your Agent, Outreach, Persona, and Interview Depth in the sidebar
- Test your study with the embedded preview
- Go live when ready
Step 1: Start a new study
From your dashboard, click New in the sidebar. Enter your study objective in plain language:Our purchase funnel is: browse, add to cart, enter payment, confirm order. We’re seeing a big dropoff at the payment step. I want to understand what’s causing users to leave at that point and what would get them to complete the purchase.
The more context you provide, the better Pillow can generate relevant goals.
Step 2: Review and refine goals
After entering your objective, Pillow automatically generates study goals. Goals stream in real-time. Use the chat to refine your goals. Example prompts:- “Add a goal about whether users trust us with their payment info”
- “Remove goal 3, we already know about cart abandonment”
- “Make the pricing goal more specific to the payment step”
- “Merge the last two goals into one”
- “Reorder goals to prioritize the dropoff reasons first”
Reverting changes
To undo a change, click the revert icon next to any of your messages. This restores the goals to their previous state and places your message back in the input field.Your goals directly shape what the Researcher Agent asks about. More specific goals lead to more focused conversations.
Adding images to goals
You can attach up to 4 images per goal to give your Researcher Agent visual context — useful for studies about UI flows, design mockups, or physical products. Click the image icon on any goal card to upload images. Supported formats: PNG, JPEG, WebP.Adding notes
Click Notes in the sidebar to add free-form notes that provide extra context to the AI. Notes help the Study Builder understand background information, constraints, or nuances that don’t fit neatly into goals.Step 3: Configure in the sidebar
The right sidebar panel provides quick access to configure your study. All four settings are accessible at any time during the building process.Agent
Click Agent in the sidebar to customize your Researcher Agent:- First name: Choose a friendly, human name (e.g., Sarah, Alex, Jordan)
- Gender: Select Female, Male, or Non-binary (used for grammatical agreement in gendered languages)
- Look: Choose Logo (uses your organization logo), Text (auto-generated from the agent’s name), or Custom (upload your own image or generate with AI)
- Tone of voice: Set the conversation style
- Reveal policy: Control how the agent responds when asked if it’s AI
- Formal address: Toggle on for languages with formal pronouns (vous, usted, Sie). When enabled, the agent uses the formal form of address.
Interview depth
The Interview Depth slider in the sidebar controls how many questions the agent asks:| Level | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Express | Fewest questions, no follow-ups — fast and broad |
| Quick | Brief interviews with minimal follow-ups |
| Balanced | Default — a mix of coverage and depth |
| Deep | More questions with follow-ups on interesting responses |
Outreach
Click Outreach in the sidebar to set your opening message. This is the first message users see:Hey! I’mWhen you open the Outreach panel, Pillow automatically generates an opening message based on your goals and agent. Click Regenerate to create a new version. You can also add translations for multi-language studies.{{agent_name}}from{{org_public_name}}. We’re looking into the checkout experience and would love your take. Have you gone through our checkout recently?
Short, friendly messages with a question at the end tend to see the best engagement.
Persona Optional
Click Persona in the sidebar to describe your target audience. Attributes are freeform key-value pairs that help the agent personalize the conversation. For a checkout study, you might add:| Key | Value |
|---|---|
purchase_frequency | 2-3 per month |
account_age | 3+ months |
payment_method | credit card |
Persona attributes guide the conversation but don’t restrict who can participate.
Editing via chat
You can also modify any of these settings by chatting with the Study Builder. Ask it to change the agent’s name, update the outreach message, adjust persona attributes, or switch the interview depth — the builder updates the configuration inline.Step 4: Test your study
Once your Agent and Outreach are configured, click Start testing to generate a test link. The sidebar shows:- Test link: Share internally for QA before going live
- Embedded preview: Test the conversation directly in the builder
Test conversations are never included in your dashboard reports or insights. Test as much as you want without affecting your data.
What to test
- Does the agent ask relevant questions based on your goals?
- Are follow-ups appropriate based on responses?
- Does the conversation feel natural?
- Is the tone appropriate for your audience?
Step 5: Go live
When you’re satisfied with testing:- Review your configuration one final time
- Click Switch to live in the sidebar
- Your production link is generated and ready to share
Your study is now live at
https://pillow.so/abc123What’s next
Test vs. live mode
Understand how testing works before going live.
Broadcast your study
Learn how to share your link effectively.