AI & questions in study request forms 🤖

When someone on your team submits a study request, Ethnio can use AI to turn what they share into a first draft of the study. Or, Ethnio can just use your Questions Library or approved past studies or templates. You set all these options up when you create each study request form.

The AI & questions settings control which AI model does that drafting, and where it may pull questions from. These settings are applied behind the scenes, so requesters never see them.

You’ll find them under [Settings path, e.g. Settings > Study requests > AI & questions].

What AI does in a study request

A requester might share a study plan, a research brief, a document, or just a short description of what they want to learn. AI reads that material and builds a draft study for your team to review. That draft can include:

• A screener or survey with suggested questions
• Answer choices and logic based on who the study needs to reach
• Questions reused from your Questions Library or past studies, depending on your settings

Nothing goes live on its own. Every draft is a starting point for your team to review, edit, and approve.

Drafting assistant: choosing a model

The first row of cards sets which AI model drafts your studies. You can pick one of these:

• Google Gemini
• Anthropic Claude
• OpenAI ChatGPT
• Disable AI

The model version in use appears in small grey text under each provider’s name. Ethnio keeps these current as providers release new versions, so you don’t need to change anything when a model is updated. All three providers work the same way inside Ethnio. Most teams choose based on their own preference or their organization’s policy about which AI providers are approved.

🚫 Disable AI

Choosing Disable AI turns off AI drafting for study requests entirely. Nothing is sent to any AI model, and requesters fill in the request form themselves. We mark this option as Not recommended because your team loses the time saved by automatic drafts. It’s there for organizations whose policies don’t allow AI tools.

When AI is disabled, the Build questions from settings are paused, since there’s no AI drafting for them to guide.

🛡️ How study and participant data stays private

Ethnio never shares participant data, personally identifiable information (PII), or protected health information (PHI) with AI. Before anything reaches an AI model, Ethnio replaces sensitive details with masked tokens. Names, emails, phone numbers, addresses and redemption links all become placeholders like [token8gasd] . The AI works only with those placeholders and never knows who the content is about. Once the AI is done, Ethnio puts the real details back inside Ethnio.

Here’s how that looks in practice:

1. In Ethnio: a participant named Maya has her name, email and gift card link stored securely in Ethnio.
2. What AI sees: “Hi [tokena4sdf], your gift card is ready: [token8gasd]”
3. What gets sent: Ethnio swaps the real details back in, so Maya gets “Hi Maya, your gift card is ready” with her actual link.

Build questions from

The second row of cards are guard rails for Ethnio can create screener or survey questions in your study draft. This sets the sources AI may use when it writes the screener or survey for a study request. This keeps drafts consistent with the questions your team has already approved.

🔀 Any source

AI reuses questions from your Questions Library and your organization’s past studies first. If nothing fits a requirement in the request, it writes a new question. This is the most flexible option and works well for most teams.

📖 Library only

AI uses only approved questions from your Questions Library. If the library doesn’t cover something the request needs, that requirement is left out of the draft rather than filled with a new question. Choose this if your team needs every question to be pre-approved, for example for legal, compliance or brand reasons.

🗂️ Past studies only

AI matches questions and answer choices from your organization’s past studies and never uses the Questions Library. This is useful if your past studies are your most trusted source of tested questions.

🔐 How permissions work

AI only draws on past studies the requester already has access to. If someone can’t see a study in Ethnio, AI won’t use its questions in their draft.

The new editor, logic, and rendering engine

At the bottom of the page is a toggle for Use the new editor, logic, and rendering engine. We recommend leaving this on. It gives you Ethnio’s latest study editor, with improved question logic and more reliable rendering for participants.

The FAQ❓

Who can edit or create request forms?

Only account owners or admins.

Can requesters see or change these settings?

No. These settings are applied behind the scenes when a request is assembled, and requesters never see them.

Does choosing a different model change the price?

No, you can see your AI credit usage in Plan & Usage › AI Credits

If I switch models, does it affect studies that are already drafted?

Nope, only moving forward

Is any participant data used to train AI models?

Participant details are masked before anything reaches AI, so models never receive real names, emails, phone numbers, addresses or links.

Need more help? Reach out to us at help@ethn.io and we’ll be glad to help. 🙌