Creating surveys and online forms can sometimes be rather tedious. But, it's 2024 and AI is here to help us with our boring tasks (except for dishwashing, you still get to do that yourself!). In this blog post we'll explore the current state of AI survey and AI form creation. We'll run you through various AI survey builders, and the best prompts to use. We'll also talk about our own approach, called "Prompt to Survey" and "Prompt to Form". Finally, we'll also add nuance to the AI hype and tell you what you better not completely entrust to AI just yet!
Generative AI and Creating Forms and Surveys
AI form and survey generation leverages large language models (LLMs), to interpret natural language and automatically generate forms or surveys based on that input. Instead of manually adding questions or customising the design, users can simply provide a short description of what they need, and AI handles the rest. This can involve anything from form creation (like contact or registration forms) to more complex surveys used for customer feedback or market research.
Leveraging AI for the form creation process brings number of advantages (speed, multilingual surveys, etc.). We discuss the use of AI for form building in more details in this article, and provide you a comparison of the latest tools in this article.
Using AI to Create Forms and Surveys in Practice
In case you hadn't noticed, you're reading the blog of a company that builds form-building tools. We recently launched Prompt to Form, a free AI survey generator. So what's different compared to other AI form builders? Prompt to form not only acts as an AI survey question generator, it also generates the design of your survey using AI. In other words, you can also specify the desired style of your form in a separate style prompt for our AI. You can try it out for free here. Alternatively, you can also watch this short demo video:
Step 1: AI Questionnaire Maker
The first step consists of specifying in natural language what you want to create. Are you creating a form or a survey? What is the context and what are some of the questions you would like to have answered by respondents? The more extensive your prompt the better the resulting questionnaires and forms will be. You can make changes to your form by simply leaving a new prompt.
For Example, in the gif below we prompt the AI to create a multi-page form to ask event attendants about their experience.
Step 2: AI Form Design
In this second step you'll instruct the AI how you want your form or survey to look like. You can simply provide a prompt to our artificial intelligence explaining your desired style. Or you can provide examples in the form of URLs, images, logos, etc. As is the case for the questions, you can iteratively change the style through your prompts!
For example, in the gif below we ask the AI to turn the buttons blue and make sure they become pink on hover.
Step 3: AI Survey Builder
This final step doesn't require any work on your behalf, our AI survey maker will take your prompts and create a working web form out of them. Just create an account and use our seamless sharing option to send it to respondents! Sit back, relax, and watch the survey responses roll in!
Future of Survey Creation and Form Creation: Our Vision
At the time of writing our Prompt to Form AI form builder is available for free while we test it with users (of which we hope you'll be a part of 😉). However, we have grand plans for the future of form and survey creation. If you're interested in our vision, definitely sign up to be part of our group of beta testers! We're constantly looking for feedback.
A Design-first AI Survey Maker
When it comes to leveraging AI in the form or survey creation process there's still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to generating unique designs. More specifically, we believe that generating unique and on-brand forms or surveys shouldn't still require a designer. Besides leveraging AI for the content of forms and surveys, we aim to use AI's creative power to ensure unique designs at every generation. Using our graphical editor you then get to review and customize your form to pixel-perfect.
Beyond Content: Adaptive Logic & Skip Logic using AI
Most forms and surveys aren't linear. Depending on answers from respondents you'll ask for different information or redirect them differently. Our ambition is to incorporate advanced conditional logic (e.g. skipping questions based on answers, answer piping, etc.). into the forms and surveys generated by our AI. As is the case for the questions and design, the logic of your form will be part of the way you prompt our AI.
Seamless Sharing Options
Building a form, a survey, a quiz, or sending an e-mail. In the end the goal is the same, you're looking to gather data. We believe that all of these use cases should be supported by the same tool. AI generates and designs the content, you decide what the form is and how to share it while we sync survey responses to your favourite data processing tools (e.g. Notion, Airtable, etc.).
Prompts for AI Form and Survey Creation
Prompt engineering is becoming a field in its own right. But as a general rule you cannot be too precise, and the quality of your prompt will directly influence the quality of the generated survey or form. More precisely, here are some best practices when it comes to prompting for AI survey makers and form builders.
Be Specific About Your Objective and the Survey Topic
Clearly define the category and purpose of the survey or form. This helps the AI tailor questions to the specific needs of the survey. In turn this ensures that you'll gather responses which can provide useful insights. They may not be the ones you were expecting, but that's another story!
For example: "Generate 10 survey questions for customer feedback, focusing on satisfaction, product usability, and areas for improvement.".
Specify the Question Types and Formats
Indicate whether you need a mix of open-ended, scale-based, or multiple-choice questions. This encourages the AI to diversify the types of questions it generates, making the form more engaging and comprehensive. Moreover, you'll be able to rely on AI making the best choice of question type per question.
For example: "Include a mix of open-ended and scale-based questions to assess both qualitative and quantitative feedback.".
Encourage Detail and Variety in the Responses
Ask the AI to generate questions that encourage actionable insights and cover various dimensions of the user experience. This ensures a well-rounded survey that explores multiple facets of the topic.
For example: "Cover different areas like workplace culture, management, and work-life balance to ensure comprehensive feedback."
Here are some of these best practices applied to various topics.
- Customer Feedback Form Prompt: "Generate 10 insightful survey questions to gather feedback on a customer’s overall experience with a product/service. Focus on questions that assess satisfaction, product usability, and areas for improvement. Ensure a mix of open-ended and scale-based questions"
- Employee Satisfaction Survey Prompt: "Generate 10 effective survey questions aimed at measuring employee satisfaction within a company. Include questions related to workplace culture, management, work-life balance, and overall job satisfaction. Use a mix of open-ended and scale-based formats."
- Event Registration Form Prompt: "Generate 10 essential survey questions to include in an event registration form. These questions should collect relevant participant information and gauge their preferences for event sessions, dietary requirements, and expectations. Focus on creating a well-rounded registration form."
Popular AI Survey Creators and AI Form Generators
There's quite some AI survey generators , AI form tools and AI quiz generation tools out there: Jotform, Weavely, Typeform, Cognito, Hotjar AI, SurveyMonkey Genius, etc. In case you're interested in a comparison, we cover these tools in-depth in our comprehensive guide on AI form builders.
AI Survey Generator FAQ
How can I write effective prompts for generating high-quality AI surveys?
Here's three tips for a good survey or form-generating prompt:
- Be Specific About Your Objective and the Survey Topic.
- Specify the Question Types and Formats.
- Encourage Detail and Variety in the Responses.
Is There an AI that Creates Surveys?
Yes! There's plenty of AI survey generators out there. Just to name a few:
What are the common limitations of using AI for creating forms and surveys?
There are currently two main limitations in the use of AI for form or survey creation. First, in most cases the AI does a rather generic job when it comes to form design and will stick to a fixed set of templates. Second, the generated surveys and forms will not contain logic (e.g. skip logic). You'll need to add this manually afterwards.
How to Create a Survey with AI?
You can use general-purpose AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to create a good survey draft (i.e. the set of questions to ask). However, if you want AI to generate working forms and surveys you'll need to use a dedicated tool such as Weavely. These dedicated tools provide you with a chat interface where you specify what data you want to collect, and the AI will then automatically generate a working survey or form for you which you can share with respondents online.
