AI Telephone Surveying: Automating Quantitative Data Collection with an AI Interviewer

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Leybzon, Danny D., Tirumala, Shreyas, Jain, Nishant, Gillen, Summer, Jackson, Michael, McPhee, Cameron, Schmidt, Jennifer
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Leybzon, Danny D.
Tirumala, Shreyas
Jain, Nishant
Gillen, Summer
Jackson, Michael
McPhee, Cameron
Schmidt, Jennifer
author_facet Leybzon, Danny D.
Tirumala, Shreyas
Jain, Nishant
Gillen, Summer
Jackson, Michael
McPhee, Cameron
Schmidt, Jennifer
contents With the rise of voice-enabled artificial intelligence (AI) systems, quantitative survey researchers have access to a new data-collection mode: AI telephone surveying. By using AI to conduct phone interviews, researchers can scale quantitative studies while balancing the dual goals of human-like interactivity and methodological rigor. Unlike earlier efforts that used interactive voice response (IVR) technology to automate these surveys, voice AI enables a more natural and adaptive respondent experience as it is more robust to interruptions, corrections, and other idiosyncrasies of human speech. We built and tested an AI system to conduct quantitative surveys based on large language models (LLM), automatic speech recognition (ASR), and speech synthesis technologies. The system was specifically designed for quantitative research, and strictly adhered to research best practices like question order randomization, answer order randomization, and exact wording. To validate the system's effectiveness, we deployed it to conduct two pilot surveys with the SSRS Opinion Panel and followed-up with a separate human-administered survey to assess respondent experiences. We measured three key metrics: the survey completion rates, break-off rates, and respondent satisfaction scores. Our results suggest that shorter instruments and more responsive AI interviewers may contribute to improvements across all three metrics studied.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_17718
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AI Telephone Surveying: Automating Quantitative Data Collection with an AI Interviewer
Leybzon, Danny D.
Tirumala, Shreyas
Jain, Nishant
Gillen, Summer
Jackson, Michael
McPhee, Cameron
Schmidt, Jennifer
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
With the rise of voice-enabled artificial intelligence (AI) systems, quantitative survey researchers have access to a new data-collection mode: AI telephone surveying. By using AI to conduct phone interviews, researchers can scale quantitative studies while balancing the dual goals of human-like interactivity and methodological rigor. Unlike earlier efforts that used interactive voice response (IVR) technology to automate these surveys, voice AI enables a more natural and adaptive respondent experience as it is more robust to interruptions, corrections, and other idiosyncrasies of human speech. We built and tested an AI system to conduct quantitative surveys based on large language models (LLM), automatic speech recognition (ASR), and speech synthesis technologies. The system was specifically designed for quantitative research, and strictly adhered to research best practices like question order randomization, answer order randomization, and exact wording. To validate the system's effectiveness, we deployed it to conduct two pilot surveys with the SSRS Opinion Panel and followed-up with a separate human-administered survey to assess respondent experiences. We measured three key metrics: the survey completion rates, break-off rates, and respondent satisfaction scores. Our results suggest that shorter instruments and more responsive AI interviewers may contribute to improvements across all three metrics studied.
title AI Telephone Surveying: Automating Quantitative Data Collection with an AI Interviewer
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.17718